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THE PARABLES 



OF THE 



NEW TESTAMENT 



PRACTICALLY UNFOLDED. 



EY 



ET. BEV. WM. BACON STEVENS D. D„ 

BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OE PENNSYLVANIA 



And He taught them many things by parables."— St. Mask. 




Ilasirafeb. 



/ 

PHILADELPHIA : 

J. M. STODDART & CO. 

CINCINNATI: 

E. HANNAFORD & CO. 

BOSTON: L. P. CROWN & SON; NEW YORK: E. & J. B. MEEKS; 
ST. LOUIS: F. HUTCHINSON & CO.; CHICAGO: M. A. PARKER & CO. 






V 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

J. M. STODDART & CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




OAXTON PRESS OF 
SHEEMAS & CO., PHILADELPHIA. 



PREFACE, 



This work is designed to be, as its title indicates, a practical 
unfolding of the Parables of our Lord. 

The author has not attempted to give the several explanations 
which various writers, in different ages, have made of these 
Parables, for that would require many volumes. Nor has he sought 
to store up in these pages the treasures of exegetical criticism 
which, under the minute labours of such men as Cocceius, Storr, 
Vitringa, Teelman, Ewald, Greswell, and Trench, have been 
accumulating since the days of Origen and Augustine. Neither 
has he inlaid his interpretations with those numerous gems of 
classical lore which tempt the scholar on every hand by the beau- 
tiful and pertinent illustrations which they furnish in support of 
the propriety and truthfulness of these Parables. Such a plan 
would have made the book more valuable to the student and 
the theologian, but it would have made it less acceptable to the 

(5) 



ri PREFACE. 

popular mind, which it has been his special aim to reach, enlighten, 
and expand. 

Waiving all these, he has kept steadily in view his original aim, 
and believing that there is a deep spiritual meaning in each one 
of these similitudes, which it becomes us as Christians to know 
and understand, he has sought to develop this with clearness and 
fidelity. If he shall be the means of alluring others to a more 
earnest study of these inimitable Parables, these " apples of gold 
in pictures of silver," and to a better understanding of their 
precepts and doctrine, he shall devoutly thank God, and feel that 
his labour has not been in vain in the Lord. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The Parable . . . . . . . . . . .13 

The Ten Virgins ........... 23 

The Unmerciful Servant ........... 37 

The Rich Fool ............ 55 

Pounds and Talents , ....'.....71 

The Lost Sheep : The Lost Monet ......... 91 

The Prodigal Son . . . . . . . . . . .107 

The Unjust Steward ........... 125 

The Good Samaritan . . . . . . . . . . - . 137 

The Pharisee and the Publican . . . . . . . . 155 

The Labourers in the Vineyard .......... 177 

The Barren Fig-Tree 193 

The Unjust Judge : The Importunate Friend ........ 207 

The Wicked Husbandmen 227 

The Sower ............. 241 

The Tares ............ 267 

The Mustard Seed ........ . 285 



(7) 



viii CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

The Leaven 297 

The Hid Treasure ........... 307 

The Pearl ............ 317 

The Draw-Net 325 

Dives and Lazarus ..... ..... 339 

The Marriage of the King's Son : The Great Supper ...... 361 



TO THE 



EIGHT REVEREND STEPHEN ELLIOTT, JR., D.D., 



BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF GEORGIA. 



My Dear Bishop— 

The memory of many years of sweet Christian intercourse ; 
the ties of official relation as parishioner, vestryman, pupil, and 
presbyter; the sacred associations connected with the laying od 
of your hands in the rite of Confirmation, and in admission to the 
Diaconate and the Priesthood, constitute such a claim upon my 
grateful regard, that I dedicate to you this humble volume, 
the first fruits of my expository labours. I offer it as a small 
expression of the love which I bear to you personally, and of the 
admiration which I entertain for your noble qualities, nobly 
exercised in the noblest of all human offices. 

That your future course may be "as the shining light that 
shineth more and more unto the perfect day," is the fervent 
wish of 

Your affectionate and grateful friend, 

Wm. Bacon Stevens. 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 



In confidence of the appreciative reception that this 
work will meet, the Publishers beg to call attention to the 
general elegance that is displayed in its publication, feel- 
ing it but right, in justice to the great beauty and interest 
of the subject, and to the rare ability of the talented 
author, to give it such a dress as it deserves, and at the 
same time to place it at such a price as will bring it within 
the reach of all. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



SUBJECT 




PAINTER 


ENGRAVER 


PAGE 


THE TEN VIRGINS . . 




FRANKLIN . 


. HUMPHREYS 


. Frontispiece 


" AND THE DOOR WAS SHUT" . 


• 


. FRANKLIN 


. MoGOFFIN . 


Titu: Page 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT , 


. . 


FRANKLIN . 


. BEST . . 


. . . 37 


THE PRODIGAL SON . 




. WARREN 


. McGOFFIN . 


. 107 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN . 


• 


. FRANKLIN . 


. BEST . 


. . . 137 


THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD 


. FRANKLIN . 


. BEST . 


. . 177 


THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN . 


• 


. FRANKLIN . 


. BEST . 


. 227 


LAZARUS AT THE GATE . 




. FRANKLIN . 


McGOFFIN . 


. . 339 



&frs JataMe. 



THE PAEABLE. 

THE presentation of moral truth in the form of Parables 
is one of the most ancient as well as one of the most 
interesting forms of literature. 

Parables are found far back in the earliest ages of the 
world ; they exist in most of the cultivated languages of 
the East; they are used by the poet, the historian, and 
the philosopher ; they are listened to with delight by all 
classes of people, and, as Jerome has well said, are among 
the favourite vehicles for the conveyance of moral truth 
throughout the Oriental world. 

Many of these ancient parables are happily couched, and 
possess both point and beauty. Many of them are pic- 
turesque and forcible to a high degree; but a careful study 
of all merely human parables, from whatever source gathered 
and by whomsoever uttered, will soon show how superior 
to them all, in every point, are the Parables of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

To these Parables we shall confine ourselves, not only 
because they embody every parabolic excellence, but also, 
and chiefly, because they present to us by means of a series 

15 



16 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

of exquisitely wrought pictures, the great truths which lie 
at the foundation of man's salvation from sin, and his final 
condition beyond the grave. 

We have a personal interest in these Parables. There is 
not one from which we may not gather a personal lesson : 
for, though addressed to men who lived eighteen centuries 
ago, yet so analogous are our spiritual wants to theirs, so 
similar our relations to God, and so applicable to all the 
phases of humanity, and all the changes of time, with a 
divinely perpetuated and self-adapted vitality, that they 
are just as important to the Church now as when first 
uttered; for they embody truths that cannot die — they 
illustrate principles that must ever operate on society — 
they afford directions that are ever needed, and they 
minister reproof and comfort with as much freshness and 
pungency to-day as when first uttered by our blessed Lord. 
The study of the Parables, therefore, cannot fail to prove 
deeply interesting. They are so many portraits of the 
duties and principles of the Christian religion, and they 
hang around the four walls of the Gospels of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, as pictures drawn by a heavenly 
artist to embody heavenly truth ; and as, in recommending 
to a young student of sculpture, the statue of Apollo Bel- 
videre as the most perfect specimen of art, the Abbe 
Winkelman adds, " Go and study it ; and if you see no great 
beauty in it to captivate you, go again ; and if you still dis- 
cover none, go again and again : go until you feel it, for be 
assured it is there." So we say to the student of the Para- 
bles,, " go and study these parables, and if you see not their 



THE PARABLE. IV 

beauty at first, go again and again, gaze at them, ponder 
upon them, pray over them, until you feel them, then will 
they impress their lineaments upon your own soul, and be 
the model of your daily walk and conversation. 

The word Parable means a similitude taken from natural 
things in order to instruct us in things spiritual. It has 
been defined as a "fictitious narrative, invented for the 
purpose of conveying truth in a less offensive or more engag- 
ing form, than that of direct assertion." 

In this respect, the Parable is not unlike the Fable, yet 
they are essentially distinct. The genuine Fable does not 
move at all in the field of actual existence. It allows 
irrational and inanimate things from the kingdom of nature 
to think, act, speak, and suffer. The Parable derives its 
material only from within the range of possibility and truth, 
and from events and scenes that have their likeness in the 
occurrences of every day life. 

" The Parable is constructed to set forth a truth spiritual 
and heavenly : this the Fable, with all its value, does not 
do ; it is essentially of the earth, and never lifts itself above 
the earth. It never has a higher aim than to inculcate 
maxims of prudential morality, industry, caution, foresight; 
and these it will sometimes recommend even at the expense 
of the higher self-forgetting virtues." 

The Parable also is essentially different from the Allegory. 
The Allegory is a figurative sentence or discourse, in which 
the principal subject is described by another subject 
resembling it in its properties and circumstances. 

That exquisite passage in the eightieth Psalm, where 



18 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

David portrays Israel as a vine which God brought out of 
Egypt; and that more precious declaration of our Lord in 
the 15th chapter of St. John, where, alluding to the same 
natural object, he says, "I am the true vine, and my 
Father is the husbandman," &c, are specimens of the Alle- 
gory, which carries its own interpretation along with it, 
while the Parable must be interpreted by its author, or by 
its resemblance to the truths with which it is placed side 
by side. 

Several instances occur in the Bible where the Parable is 
spoken of as synonymous with the Proverb. The Proverb 
is a short, condensed sentence, full of pith, and barbed with 
a distinctive point; the Parable is elaborate, figurative, 
fictitious, and its meaning lies parallel with the whole cur- 
rent of its narrative. 

" Physician, heal thyself" is termed by Luke a Parable : 
it is in rhetorical strictness a Proverb. The same may be 
said of other passages of the New Testament. " To sum 
up all; then, the Parable differs from the fable, moving as it 
does in a spiritual world, and never transgressing the actual 
order of things natural, — from the mythus, there being in 
the latter an unconscious blending of the deeper meaning 
with the outward symbol, the two remaining separate and 
separable in the parable, — from the proverb, inasmuch as it 
is longer carried out, and not merely accidentally and occa- 
sionally, but necessarily figurative, — from the allegory, com- 
paring as it does one thing with another, at the same time 
preserving them apart as an inner and an outer, not trans- 



T HE PARABLE. 19 

ferring, as does the allegory, the properties and qualities 
and relations of one to the other." 

In using Parables as the media of instruction, our blessed 
Lord conformed to ancient usage and to the constitution of 
the human mind, which is so much more influenced by 
the senses than by abstract ideas. Parabolic writing is 
naturally adapted to engage attention, is easily compre- 
hended, is suited alike to the lowest and to the loftiest 
capacity, leaves strong impressions on the mind, gives 
great force to truth by strikingly personifying it, and 
enables one to unfold doctrines distasteful to the natural 
heart by images which attract the mental eye, which con- 
vey the truth directly to the soul, before passion and pre- 
judice have time to array themselves against its reception. 

This was peculiarly the case in reference to the doctrines 
which Christ promulged. The Jewish mind was not 
prepared for their reception— certain truths, such as the 
bringing in of the Gentiles, the dispersion of the Jews, the 
abrogation of the temple service, the atonement and death 
of Christ, the resurrection and ascension, the final judg- 
ment, could only be gradually unfolded, and must first be 
taught in Parables, for had our Lord spoken plainly, the 
multitude would not so easily have listened to his words ; 
but being insensibly drawn by the happy incidents, the 
touches of history, the beautiful illustration, to hear his 
discourses, they were taught many doctrines and truths to 
which their hearts would have offered malignant resistance 
had they been conveyed in any other form. 

The perfection of the Parables of Christ is evident to 



20 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

the most casual observer. They are perfect and inimitable 
models, " apples of gold in baskets of silver." 

There is nothing superfluous, nothing meretricious ; each 
is a picture to the mind's eye, complete in all its lights and 
shades, and perfect in its groupings and design. 

With reference to the Parables, we may say what Luther 
does . of the Bible at large, that " it is a garden of God, 
with many a lovely tree laden with lordly fruit ; and that, 
often as he had shaken the boughs and received the 
delicious fruit into his bosom, yet had he ever found new 
fruit when he had searched and shaken them anew." 

Admirably, then, did our Lord adapt his instructions to 
the mental and moral necessities of his hearers ; and we 
might appeal to his Parables alone, in proof of the divinity 
of his mission. 

The fables and allegories of the heathen world, were 
interwoven with their fictitious history, with their debasing 
mythologies, with their poetic extravagancies, and were 
designed to support that idolatry and polytheism which it 
was the object of the gospel to destroy. The moral instruc- 
tion, if any was intended, must be dug out from the rubbish 
of poetical images and superstitious conceits. A very slight 
comparison of the abstruse allegories of Plato, the mon- 
strous fables of the Jewish Talmud or the Asiatic Vishnu, 
with the Parables of the gospel, will suffice to show, that 
while delicacy, wit, virtue, truth, are continually violated 
in the former ; purity, elegance, pathos, point, and sublime 
power are found in the latter. The former, like the ignes 
fatui, are born in the foul fens and marshes of man's 



THE PARABLE. 21 

depraved nature, and are earthly, sensual, devilish; the 
latter, like the guiding pillar of fire in the camp of the 
Israelites, is heavenly, spiritual, and divine. 

But a quality which distinguishes them above all other 
parables, is the universality of their application, and the 
perfect, real value of their instruction. In their original 
delivery, they were wisely adapted to the people and the 
time at which, and for whom, they were spoken. Yet they 
are equally valuable now, and in all parts of the world, 
" for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness." They never weary the mind, never become 
distasteful to the soul, never grow old and obsolete, never 
lose their force or beauty; but will ever be read with 
delight, ever be studied with interest, and ever be esteemed 
the most precious as well as most beautiful and instructive 
passages of God's Holy Word. 



tyt Sitt Singing. 



THE TEN VIRGINS. 

" Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their 
lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and 
five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with 
them ; but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bride- 
groom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry 
made, Behold the bridegroom cometh ; go ye out to meet him. Then all those 
virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give 
us of your oil ; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not 
so ; lest there be not enough for us and you : but go. ye rather to them that sell, 
and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came ; and 
they that were ready went in with him to the marriage : and the door was shut. 
Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he 
answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore ; for 
ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." 

Matt. xxv. 1-13. 

THE simple diction, the attractive similitudes, and the 
solemn moral of this parable, invest it with peculiar 
interest. Many ancient and modern writers have attempted 
to compose like allegories, but in elegance, fitness, and 
didactic force, they fall far below this parable of our Lord. 
Witness, for example, the following by Rabbi Jochanan 
ben Zaccai, who lived in the century before Christ : " A 
certain king invited his servants to a feast, but did not fix 
any time for them to come. Those of them who were 

25 



26 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

wary and prudent adorned themselves and sat at the gate 
of the king's house, but those of them that were fools went 
and did their work, and said, Is there any work without 
trouble ? 

"On a sudden the king inquired after his servants; the 
wise went in before him as they were adorned, but the fools 
went in before him as they were, filthy and soiled. 

" The king rejoiced at meeting the wise, but was angry 
at meeting the foolish, and ordered that those who had 
adorned themselves for the feast should sit and eat, and 
those who had not adorned themselves should stand." 

This, however, as well as other parables in the Tal- 
mucls, lack many of the essential points which distinguish 
those recorded in the Gospel. 

We are here introduced into the stirring and picturesque 
scenes of an oriental marriage. 

The nuptial ceremony in the East is always one of dis- 
play and often magnificence, is full of excitement, and 
marked by many peculiar customs, an understanding of 
which is necessary to a full appreciation of this beautiful 
parable. 

These marriage festivals lasted sometimes several days, 
but the period of greatest public interest was that when the 
bridegroom conducted his bride from her parent's house to 
her future home. This was usually done at night, when 
the parties, accompanied by their respective friends, joined 
in glad procession, and the scene, lit up by countless torches, 
and enlivened by choral songs or instrumental music, was 
peculiarly exciting and delightful. The custom still pre 



THE TEN VIRGINS. 2/ 

vails in Asiatic countries, and we have been present at av 
Eastern wedding, where the ceremonies observed corres- 
ponded very much to those here described. We well 
remember the moving lamps glittering like so many fire- 
flies in the darkness ; the strains of music varying in 
volume, in measure, in expression, yet mostly jubilant; the 
advancing procession, the shout of those stationed at the 
bridegroom's house, as the head of the nuptial column 
came in sight, " behold the bridegroom cometh !" and the 
expressions of joy and hilarity which lighted up every 
countenance and animated every heart, and while beholding 
this scene we felt, as we had never before done, the force 
and fidelity as well as emphasis of the Parable of the 
Ten Virgins. 

The design of this parable is to enforce Christian watch- 
fulness; and nothing could more aptly illustrate its necessity 
than the felicitous similitude here employed. 

By " the kingdom of heaven" is meant the state of 
things under the gospel dispensation; by the "virgins," the 
members of Christ's church, the professors of his religion, 
who should be like virgins in the purity and innocence of 
their lives and conversation. 

The number ten was doubtless mentioned because it was 
a favourite one among the Jews. According to the 
Mishna, a congregation consisted of ten persons, and less 
than that number did not make one ; and whenever there 
were ten persons in a place they were obliged to build a 
synagogue. With less than ten men they did not divide 
the Shema, i. e. " Hear, Israel," &c, nor did the messenger 



28 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

of the congregation go before the ark to pray, nor did the 
priest lift up the hands to bless the people, &c., &c. The 
Lamps represent the profession of godliness, the Bridegroom 
is Christ, his Spouse the Church. 

The words rendered respectively "wise" and "foolish," 
mean, the former: sensible, prudent, having sagacity 
and discernment; and the latter: dull, sluggish and slow, 
evidencing the lack of those very qualities which make up 
the character of the wise; and the wisdom and folly of 
each five was seen in the fact mentioned by our Lord, 
" That they that were foolish took their lamps and took no 
oil with them ; but the wise took oil in their vessels with 
their lamps." 

The obscure ideas which this passage conveys to an 
English reader is made clear by a recurrence to Eastern 
customs. Kabbi Jarchi says that it was the custom in the 
land of Ishmael to bring the bride from her father's house 
to her husband's in the night, and to carry before her about 
ten staves. Upon the top of each staff was the form of a 
brazen dish, and in the midst of it pieces of garments, oil, 
and pitch, which they set on fire : holding these in one 
hand, they carry in the other a vessel full of oil, with which 
they replenish from time to time their else useless lamps. 

The having or not having " Oil in their vessels with their 
lamps," is the hinge upon which turns the whole moral of 
the parable. 

Many and very diverse have been the interpretations 
given of this emblem; and many a controversial, battle has 
been fought upon this narrow verse. 



THE TEN VIRGINS. 20 

Looking only at the animus of the parable, and the 
circumstances under which it was uttered, we feel warranted 
in saying, that while the "lamps" represent the outward 
profession of religion, the "oil in their vessels with their 
lamps," signifies the grace of God in the heart, by which 
only true religion can be nurtured and sustained; for 
wherever the spirit of Christ is not, there, of course, is an 
absence of that oil of grace by which the professor can 
become "a burning and a shining light." 

Taking then the wise and foolish virgins as exponents 
respectively of true and false professors of religion, let us 
notice first the points of resemblance between them. They 
were both virgins in name and character, outwardly unim- 
peachable and chaste in conduct. They were both attend- 
ant on the bridegroom, had received and obeyed the external 
calling which enrolled them as his attendants. They were 
both invited to the marriage-feast, and had held out before 
them the bliss of that festive occasion, when they should 
sit down with the bridegroom at the nuptial supper. They 
both had lamps, the outward signs and evidences of being 
attendant on the bridegroom, the symbols of a professing 
faith. They both, while the bridegroom tarried, slumbered 
and slept; relapsed from a watchful into a careless, 
nodding, sleeping condition. They both arose at the 
midnight cry, "Go ye out to meet him," and "trimmed 
their lamps," to comply with the summons. 

So with regard to true and false professors. They are 
all nominal Christians, visible and outward attendants on 
the bridegroom Christ. They have all the lamp of a holy 



30 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

profession, and maintain the same general character for 
virgin purity ; they are strict in the performance of all 
moral duties, constant in their attendance on the house of 
God, give, perhaps liberally, for the support of the Gospel, 
manifest much zeal for Christ, and bear towards men the 
form and visage of true devotion. These are some of the 
points wherein the true and the false professor agree ; they 
travel thus far in the same visible path, and the eye of the 
world cannot, up to this point, detect any difference. But 
to the eye of Him w r ho seeth in secret, there is a marked and 
eternal dissimilarity ; for, secondly, the points of dissimi- 
larity, though not so numerous as those of resemblance, 
are very distinct and significant. The wise virgins had 
taken oil in their vessels with their lamps, but the foolish 
virgins neglected this precaution, and when the first flame 
of enthusiasm or mental fervour was burnt out, they had 
no supply of grace to sustain the light of life. 

They differed also in the fact that, while, at the midnight 
cry, the lamps of the wise virgins were still burning, and 
only needed " trimming," the lamps of the foolish had alto- 
gether " gone out." Consequently, while the one class was 
prepared to go out to meet the bridegroom, the other was 
embarrassed and unprepared. The midnight hour was no 
time wherein to buy the needed oil; and, though they 
attempted to repair their indiscretion, it was too late. The 
wise virgins, joining the procession with trimmed and burn- 
ing lamps, passed on in the bridegroom's train, and " the 
door was shut." 

The broad difference thus indicated still exists between 
the sincere Christian and the hypocrite. 



THE TEN VIRGINS. 31 

The lamps of the false professor often go out in this life, 
when they who have begun in the spirit end in the flesh, 
and they break out perhaps into open apostacy. How often, 
in the language of Job, is " the candle of the wicked" thus 
" put out," for they have not, with the lamp of profession, 
a heart filled with the oil of grace. This oil of grace, 
lodged in the heart, is the sole replenisher of the lamp of 
profession. Each Christian's heart must be like the bowl 
of the golden candlestick which Zechariah saw in vision in 
the Sanctuary, wherein was kept the oil — pure — costly — 
elaborately prepared, which, through golden pipes, "fed 
the seven lamps on the top thereof." Every lamp of the 
Christian profession must draw its oil through these golden 
pipes of the Sanctuary, and from this golden bowl, filled 
with the oil of God's spirit. That life of outward devotion, 
of external profession, which is not daily fed by the 
indwelling grace of the Holy Ghost, is a foolish virgin's 
lamp. It will do while they slumber and sleep, but will 
fill them with sore dismay w T hen the cry shall be made at 
midnight : " Behold the Bridegroom cometh ; go ye out to 
meet him !" when they shall discover — alas ! too late — 
that they have "no oil in their vessels with their lamps." 

Such being the points of similarity and dissimilarity 
between the w T ise and foolish virgins, we turn to examine 
the respective results in the case of each. 

The wise virgins, though sleeping when the midnight cry 
was heard, " arose, and trimmed their lamps," and were 
soon in a condition to go out and meet the bridegroom 
Joining the nuptial procession, they moved along to the 



32 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

bridegroom's house, and " went in with him to the mar- 
riage." The others, like the wise virgins, arose and 
trimmed their lamps, but having no oil wherewith to 
replenish them, sought to borrow some of their sister 
virgins, and failing in this, " went to buy" some of those 
that sold. While thus engaged, the bridegroom came ; the 
procession moved on; the wise virgins passed in to the 
feast; and when afterward the other virgins came, they 
found the streets dark and deserted, and when they 
reached the bridegroom's house, " the door was shut." In 
vain they cried, " Lord, Lord, open to us !" His reply was, 
" I know you not." It was dark ; he could not see their 
faces, and he might perhaps have thought that it was part 
of a marauding band, thus feigning the character and the 
voices of his chosen attendants, and seeking to enter his 
house, and break up the festal scene. 

In like manner will the false professors fail to gain 
admittance to the marriage-supper of the Lamb in Heaven. 
Lacking the oil of grace, they will not be able to join with 
the bridegroom's train; and when in despair they besiege 
the ear of God with the cry, " Lord, Lord, open unto us," 
they will find the door shut, and will hear the voice of the 
Heavenly Bridegroom saying from within, "I know you 
not." There is no entreaty that will then avail — the 
virgin chasteness of an outward morality ; the lamp of a 
once bright profession ; the companionship of the wise 
virgins ; will each be worthless. What is needed at that 
midnight hour, and to gain an entrance through that open 
door to the marriage-feast, is, the burning lamp fed with 



THE TEN VIRGINS. 33 

the oil of grace, and shining out in the holy faith and pious 
works of one made " wise" by the renewing of the Holy 
Ghost. 

The Lord Jesus gives us the moral of this parable in 
the words, " Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day 
nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh." * 

Watchfulness is an essential requisite of Christian 
character; and this watchfulness must be exercised in 
reference to things within and things without. We must 
watch the affections of the heart, their character, their 
direction, their force ; we must watch the operations of our 
minds, their motions, thought, imaginations ; we must 
watch the outgoing desires of our soul, their aim, their ten- 
dency, their exciting cause ; we must watch also our out- 
ward temptations, the snares spread for our feet, the wiles 
of the adversary, and the manifold arts and transformations 
whereby he lays in wait to deceive. 

If it be true in politics, where we have but human ene- 
mies to contend with, that the price of liberty "is eternal 
vigilance ;" much more in religion, where we wrestle not 
against " flesh and blood, but against principalities, against 
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world/' 
is it true that the price of eternal life is unrelaxing watch- 
fulness. 

The unwatching, will soon be a conquered Christian. 

The Christian's lamp needs daily replenishing from the 
fountain of all light. The oil of grace needs daily renewal ; 
it must be daily sought for at the mercy seat ; for, if the 



34 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

Holy Spirit's beams are quenched, there is no relighting of 
his lamp, and no going in to the marriage. 

Especially is there a necessity for this constant prepara- 
tion to meet the Bridegroom, in view of the uncertainty of 
the time when He will appear. 

That "Pie will come and will not tarry," is a revealed and 
certain truth : but when He will come ; the week, the day, 
the hour ; we know not. How He will come, suddenly or 
slowly, at home or abroad, with lingering disease or un- 
foreseen accident, we know not; hence the necessity of 
being always prepared, of having our lamps always 
"trimmed," and of having "oil in our vessels with our 
lamps," that when the summons comes we may be prepared 
to obey it, and go in unto the marriage supper of the Lamb 
in heaven. 

There are, then, in the visible church, such persons as 
correspond in character to the "foolish virgins;" and it be- 
comes us then to mark well the points wherein they are 
deficient, and seek, where only it can be found, at the 
throne of grace, for that wisdom which is liberally given 
of God, that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of 
wisdom, and by which we are made " wise" unto everlasting 
life. 

There is, then, such a thing, as an oilless lamp. Many 
such are carried by the professed attendants of the Bride- 
groom, Christ ; and it behooves us to see to it that there 
is oil in our vessels, the oil of grace, as without it we have 
but "a name to live and are dead." 

There is, then, to be heard a midnight cry. " Behold 



THE TEN VIRGINS. 35 

the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him !" and we 
must see to it that we arise and trim our lamps, that Death 
surprise us not in our slumber, and find us unprepared for 
the summons that must soon ring upon our ears. 

There will be found, at last, by every possessor of a lamp 
which has " gone out," an unopened door and a rebuking 
Saviour ; and it is of the utmost importance that we should 
diligently seek every needed preparation, so that we may 
go in with the Bridegroom to the marriage supper, and not 
come at the last, after fruitless effort to buy the oil of grace 
at human shambles, amidst the unillumined darkness of 
the midnight of death, to that unopened door, only to hear 
from within, in response to our knocks, and our cry " Lord, 
Lord, open unto us," the stern rebuff, "Verily I say unto 
you, I know you not." 

That we may, therefore, avoid the doom of the foolish 
virgins, and secure the position of the wise, let us give all 
diligence to our Lord's injunction, "Watch, therefore, for 
ye know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of 
Man cometh." 








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THE UNMEECIFUL SEEVANT. 

" Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would 
take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought 
unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to 
pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that 
he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped 
him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord 
of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the 
debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, which 
owed him a hundred pence : and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, 
saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and 
besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he 
would not : but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So 
when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and 
told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, 
said unto him, thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou 
desiredst me : shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, 
even as I had pity on thee ? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the 
tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto' him. So likewise shall my 
heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his 
brother their trespasses." Matt, xviii. 23-35. 

THIS parable, which Bishop Porteus says "is one of the 
most interesting and affecting that is to be found either 
in Scripture or in any of the most admired writers of anti- 
quity," was drawn from our Saviour by the inquiry of St. 
Peter — "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and 

I forgive him ?" 

39 



40 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

In a conversation with his disciples, just before, our Lord 
had directed what course to pursue in reference to tres- 
passes, and in what way to seek redress of our grievances. 
The subject arrested the attention of Peter. The duties 
enjoined and the precepts delivered by Christ, were new, 
striking, important. Peter was anxious for more information, 
and for some specific rule. He knew, doubtless, that the 
rabbinical law of forgiveness said, that " three offences were 
to be remitted, but not the fourth," and putting what, per- 
haps, he supposed an extreme case, he asks if he shall for- 
give his brother "until seven times?" thus doubling the 
number which the Talmud required him to pardon. To 
this question Christ promptly answers, "I say not unto 
thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven ;" 
thus inculcating a breadth of forgiveness widely removed 
from the narrow law of the Eabbins on the one hand, or 
the supposed liberality of Peter on the other. 

But our Lord did not design to affix any definite limit to 
the number of offences which it was our duty to forgive. 
Seven, as is w T ell known, was, among the Hebrews, a num- 
ber representing perfection, and therefore is frequently 
used in the Scriptures to denote frequency, fullness, multi- 
tude ; so that, to forgive " seven times" means to forgive 
many times, but to forgive " seventy times seven" expresses 
the full and perfect forgiveness which should be manifested 
towards all offenders. 

Here, then, was the utterance of a great and heaven-born 
principle — the unlimited forgiveness of injuries ! and to 
illustrate this principle on a scale commensurate with its 



THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 41 

real greatness, our Lord related the parable of " The Un- 
merciful Servant." 

In this parable " a certain king" is represented as taking 
'' account of his servants," or fiscal ministers, to whom were 
committed the farming and collecting of his royal revenues. 
He had scarcely "begun to reckon," before his attention 
was drawn to one who "owed him ten thousand talents." 
When he "was brought unto him," it was found that he 
had not wherewith to pay, being hopelessly bankrupt. He 
was evidently a tributary prince or treasurer, in whose 
custody were placed the revenues of the realm, and who 
had abused the confidence of the king by appropriating to 
himself "ten thousand talents." This amount, even taking 
the talent at its lowest value, was more than equal to the 
enormous sum of fifteen millions of dollars, and evinces, at 
once, the elevated dignity to which this servant of the king 
was raised, and the boldness of the peculation which he 
attempted on the royal exchequer. 

Confessing his inability to pay, the king, termed here 
" his lord," because, in those countries, all subjects, from 
the lowest to the highest, were the virtually owned servants 
of the monarch, "commanded him to be sold, and his wife, 
and children, and all that he had, and payment to be 
made." This severe penalty for insolvency was one often 
used in the East, as is testified to by sacred and profane 
writers ; and, even in the Roman law, wife and children 
being part of the father's possessions, were sold with him 
into slavery when he could not pay his debts. 

As soon, however, as he learns the order of his king, and 



42 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

knowing the miserable servitude into which it will plunge 
him — an abasement the more galling because of the height 
from which he fell — he falls down, and, in oriental fashion, 
"worships him" — prostrating himself upon his face before 
him — " saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay 
thee all." Touched with the abject misery of the suppliant, 
and feeling in his own heart the relentings of compassion, 
the king orders his fettered prisoner to be loosed ; revoked 
the sentence which consigned him to the auction-mart of 
the slave ; restored to him his wife, his children, his goods ; 
and "forgave him the debt." 

What a sense of relief must that wretched criminal 
have experienced as the word " forgive" fell upon his ear ! 
What a change in his condition — from a prostrate, con- 
demned beggar, ordered out for sale, with his wife and 
children, to freedom, wealth, and happiness ! Yet his sub- 
sequent conduct proved how unworthy he was of this royal 
clemency ; for, as the sacred narrative leads us to infer, he 
had scarcely gone out from the presence of his king, 
relieved of his onerous debt, when he met " one of his 
fellow servants," who "owed him a hundred pence," or 
about fifteen dollars ; and, instead of being softened by the 
mercy which he had experienced, he lays violent hands on 
him, and " took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that 
thou owest." The action of prostration, the plea for 
patience, and the promise eventually to pay all, which he 
had just made to his king, is now made by his fellow ser- 
vant to himself; there is an identity of act and language, 
in order to give greater force to the unforgiving nature of 



THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 43 

this imperious creditor. Though that abasement and plea 
♦bund mercy for him, it obtains no mercy from him. One 
would have supposed, that touching that tender chord 
would have procured at once a compassionate response; 
that the hundred pence would at once have been forgiven, 
in view of the ten thousand talents remitted by his lord. 
But no ! Avarice is deaf, and cannot hear ; blind, and 
cannot see ; heartless, and cannot feel. It has no bowels 
of mercy, no finely strung sympathies ; it is relentless in 
its grasp, cruel in its aims ; and the horse-leech cry of its 
insatiate appetite is "give ! give !" 

To get gain, it will steal from the treasuries of kings, or 
grind the face of the poor; it will wrench open the 
clenched hand of- penury for its uttermost farthing, and 
wring from the widowed mother the pittance which gives 
her children their daily bread. Of all such oppressors God 
declares, "they have swallowed down riches, and shall 
vomit them up again ; he shall suck the poison of asps ; 
the viper's tongue shall slay him ; that which he laboured 
for he shall restore, according to his substance shall the 
restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein. In the 
fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits ; every hand 
of the wicked shall come upon him." And this is but part 
of that remarkable portraiture of a wicked, grasping, ava- 
ricious man, drawn at such full length in the book of Job. 

Refusing to listen to the cry of his fellow servant, the 
heartless creditor {C went and cast him into prison until he 
should pay the debt." This conduct was soon reported to 
the king, who, indignant at his course, ordered him into 



44 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

his presence, and, addressing him in stern and angry words, 
said, "Oh, thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that 
debt because thou desiredst me ; shouldst not thou also 
have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had 
pity on thee V Well might the king be " wroth ;" and, 
with a justice which commended itself to every observer, 
he revoked his cancellation of the debt, and "delivered 
him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due 
unto him." He merited his doom by his avarice, and he 
brought it upon himself by his extortion. 

Having thus shown the injustice of this man's proceed- 
ing, and the iniquity of an unforgiving spirit, Christ draws 
the moral — " So likewise shall my Heavenly Father do 
also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one 
his brother their trespasses." 

The design then of the parable is to teach us forgiveness 
of injuries, and the Christian grounds of it. The doctrine 
of heathen philosophers on the subject of forgiveness of 
injuries, was altogether vague and unsatisfactory. Some, 
indeed, as Plato, Maximus Tyrius, Epictetus, and Marcus 
Antoninus, commend clemency ; but others, of equal name 
and learning, as Aristotle, Cicero, Democritus, held revenge 
to be a duty, and forgiveness of injuries to be a narrow- 
minded weakness. Cicero, in his "Offices," gives it as the 
character of a good man, " that he does good to those 
whom it is in his power to serve, and hurts no man unless 
he be provoked by an injury." Many modern infidels 
have followed in the track of ancient moralists. Bayle 
declares that the precept prohibiting revenge "is contrary 



THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 45 

to the law of nature/' and Tindal goes so far as to make 
the doctrine of forgiving injuries an objection to the Gospel. 
It was important, therefore, that there should be some 
divine and immutable legislation on this subject, so that the 
world would know the truth, and have before it a certain 
guide. This great want the Lord Jesus supplied, not only 
by the delivery of this parable, but in various other pas- 
sages, in a manner at once clear, full, and authoritative. 

Let us examine, then, the basis on which this doctrine 
rests, and the arguments by which it is sustained. The 
foundation of this virtue is the revealed fact, that God has 
announced himself as a sin-pardoning God. Had there 
been no forgiveness in the Divine mind, there could have 
been none in the human, for while the vices of men are 
self-begotten, their virtues are in every instance copies in 
miniature of some of God's perfections. Hence the whole 
superstructure of forgiveness of injuries, and of loving our 
enemies, is built upon those unfoldings of the Divine cha- 
racter, which represent Him as a God, pardoning iniquity 
and showing mercy to the unrighteous. It was necessary 
that this trait should first be seen in Him, that He should 
pattern it forth in His own acts, and illustrate its workings 
in His own dealings with the sinful and the rebellious ; for 
how should we know what it was, or how it was to be 
exercised, had we not previously beheld it in operation ; or 
how could we have been commanded to exercise a virtue 
which God had not s himself manifested in nature or 
revelation ? But He has not thus required of us a moral 
impossibibility. How He has forgiven, is admirably set 



46 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

forth in this parable ; and the relations between ourselves, as 
debtors, and God, as a merciful creditor, are there strikingly 
illustrated. 

We are debtors to God in sums beyond our ability to 
pay ; we owe him love, obedience, faith, and the duties of 
a Christian life; we owe him our minds, our souls, our 
bodies; and when He calls us before Him to take an 
account of us, He finds us in arrears to the full extent of 
the Law, which we have not obeyed, and of the salvation 
which we have rejected, so that as he " who offendeth in 
one point of the Law, is guilty of all ;" and as he who is 
not with Christ, " is against him," it follows that we are 
moral insolvents, owing more than ten thousand talents of 
service, yet unable to pay down the first instalment of 
spiritual duty. He has called upon us to " bring all the 
tithes into the store-house," tithes of Christian offerings and 
devotion, — and we have brought none. He has given us 
talents, with the injunction, u occupy till I come" — and we 
have gracelessly " wrapped them in a napkin," or buried 
them in the earth. He has called to us, " give an account 
of thy stewardship" — and we have stood before him, 
speechless bankrupts. 

Could we fully obey God's law, we should then fully pay 
all our moral indebtedness to Him, for, in the words of the 
Prophet, " what doth the Lord require of thee but to do 
justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy 
God?" He who keeps God's law does all this; hence he 
who keeps the law does all that God requires, and cannot 
therefore become a debtor. 



THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 11 

But, as each act of disobedience, each failure in duty, 
each moment's continuance in a state of rebellion, is a debt, 
a perpetually accumulating debt, not one item of which 
can we, of ourselves, pay, and which, aggregated, are faintly 
represented by the ten thousand talents of the parable, so 
do we find ourselves in the condition of this servant, 
brought into the presence of our Lord, with a perfectly 
uncancellable debt, threatening us with its impending woe. 
If we cannot balance our accounts with God, He will, He 
must, if He is true to Himself and just in His moral govern- 
ment, require us to make up our delinquencies, "even to 
the uttermost farthing;" and, as we cannot pay all that is 
due unto Him, so must He visit our defaulting souls with 
the punishment due to such great transgressors. 

This punishment is everlasting ruin, to be sold, not as 
the Jewish law directed, for six years only, but for ever ; 
and thus made the slaves of the Prince of Darkness, with 
no year of release at hand, no jubilee of emancipation in 
prospect. The language of the Bible in reference to every 
unrenewed man is, that " he is sold under sin," that he is 
"a servant of iniquity ;" for, " know ye not," says the Apos- 
tle, " that, to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, 
his servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto 
death, or of righteousness unto holiness ?" In this condition 
of bankruptcy and servitude lay the whole human race ; 
and had God, like an inexorable creditor, refused to forgive 
us our debt, we should, even now, be under the hand of 
tormentors, and yet without any hope of paying what was 
due unto him. 



48 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

But this was not like God. He was a God of mercy, as 
well as justice ; and in His counsels purposed to "deliver 
from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in 
Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to 
everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour." To this 
end Christ became incarnate of the Virgin Mary — "God 
manifest in the flesh" — taking upon him the sinner's nature; 
standing in the sinner's place ; and " by the one oblation 
of himself, once offered, made a full, perfect, and sufficient 
sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole 
world;" so that now forgiveness of sin is proclaimed to 
mankind, a forgiveness which is bestowed freely, and with- 
out price, upon all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and who make him the alone hope of their salvation. The 
greatness of this act of forgiveness we can never know this 
side the eternal w^orld, because we can never, here, fully 
measure the malignity of the sins which we have com- 
mitted, and the dreadfulness of the curse which has been 
remitted, and the blessedness of state to which, through 
this forgiveness of sins, we are to be introduced. These 
elements, which enter into a consideration of the munifi- 
cence of God in pardoning our debts, are but faintly under- 
stood here ; but in the world to come, where we shall see 
sin in its full deformity, and the curse in its direful reality, 
and the bliss of heaven in its unspeakable glory, then shall 
we know somewhat of the infinite grace and mercy which 
God manifested when he was "moved with compassion" 
toward us, and " loosed" us from the bondage of death, and 
" forgave us the debt." Its consideration will fill us with 



THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 49 

ever-increasing praise and wonder ; its greatness will loom 
up more and more clearly ; the mercy of God will develop 
its riches with a perpetually growing glory; and, as the 
great cycles of eternity turn upon the axles of love, we 
shall still discover new grace, new grandeur, new cause of 
thanksgiving that there was with God forgiveness of sin, 
that the ten thousand talents of man's indebtedness to His 
holy law have been remitted, and guilty mortals were now, 
through the payment of this debt by our Divine Substitute 
and Surety, made " kings and priests unto God." 

It is this forgiveness, divine in its nature, eternal in its 
duration, world-wide in its compass, and unchangeable in 
its operation, which is the basis on which rests the super- 
structure of what we term the virtue of forgiving the tres- 
passes of our fellow men. 

The arguments by which we enforce and sustain this 
virtue have great force and authority, and may be reduced 
to two general heads, viz., those which are derived from 
our relations to God, and those which spring from our rela- 
tion to our fellow men. 

Beginning with this lower argument, we find a forgiving 
spirit is that by which we most secure the love and favour 
of our fellow men. We are all erring creatures; we daily 
offend in word or deed, designedly or undesignedly, against 
those around us; and as, if each of our offences was 
severely judged and rigidly condemned, we should be for 
ever miserable, and the sweet amenities of life would be 
altogether lost, so must we be ever ready to forgive others ; 
for he who makes haste to take his fellow servant by the 
throat, with the inexorable demand, " pay me that thou 



50 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

owest," will be most likely to meet with the same rough 
treatment himself. The uncommiserating, unforgiving 
man is generally uncommiserated and unforgiven. There 
is always a fearful reaction to the outgoings of hatred 
and revenge. There is a return tide which washes back 
upon the heart the evils that flowed from it ; and it often 
rolls in upon the soul with aggravated power. 

Surely we are too frail ourselves to act rigidly towards 
the frailties of our fellows. We too much need forgiveness 
to be ourselves unforgiving ; and the cultivation or mani- 
festation of a relentless spirit is sure to bring down upon 
us the unpitying vengeance of those among whom we 
dwell. So that policy, pride, self-love, personal comfort, 
social position, and other even selfish motives, combine to 
press upon us this important yet too much neglected duty ; 
for the experience of the world confirms the truth uttered 
by St. James, " He shall have judgment without mercy 
that hath showed no mercy." 

Rising to those higher motives derived from our relations 
to God, we find that the forgiveness of injuries done to 
others, is one of the conditions of our salvation. This 
truth is clearly established by God's Holy Word. In the 
sermon on the mount, our Lord declares, " If ye forgive 
men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also for- 
give you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, 
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." On 
another occasion he instructed His disciples, "When ye 
stand praying, forgive if ye have aught against any, that 
your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your 



THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 51 

trespasses; but if ye do not forgive, neither will your 
Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses ;" and 
on yet another occasion he exhorted them, saying, " For- 
give, and ye shall be forgiven ; for with what measure ye 
mete it shall be measured to you again." Were anything 
more necessary to establish this point, it is found in the 4 
last verse of this parable, where punishments condign and 
ignominious are threatened if we do not " from our hearts" 
forgive every "one his brother their trespasses." These 
passages, every one of which fell from the lips of Christ 
himself, prove demonstrably that one of the conditions on 
which we receive salvation is forgiveness of others in the 
injuries which they have done to our persons, our names, 
and our estates ; and that this forgiveness must be not of 
the lips, not in professions merely, but " from the heart ;" 
and will be judged of by Him "who searcheth the hearts 
and trieth the reins of the children of men." And as we 
cannot begin the Christian life without taking this initial 
step, so neither when once taken, can we continue it under 
any other condition. There can be no sanctification in the 
heart that is filled with strife and anger. The Holy Ghost 
is a spirit of peace, of love, of unity, and He cannot taber- 
nacle with discord and anger; and whatever then drives 
away the Sanctifier, or neutralizes His influence, hinders 
our sanctiflcation; and, consequently, we can never, so 
long as He is absent from the heart, " be made meet for 
the inheritance of the saints in light." Let no one who 
harbours an unforgiving spirit pretend to say, I am a 
Christian. St. John has denounced such as liars; for. 



52 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

says this "beloved disciple/' "if he love not his brother 
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath 
not seen ?" 

In looking at this subject in the light of our relations to 
God, we further discover that an unforgiving spirit not 
only will destroy the grace of God within us, but will turn 
our prayers into invocations of wrath. . Our daily prayer 
is, "forgive us our debts or trespasses, as we forgive our 
debtors, or those who trespass against us," i. e., we pray that 
God would forgive us, just in proportion as we forgive 
others. If we forgive others wholly, we pray that we may 
be wholly forgiven ; if we forgive but little, we pray that 
we may be forgiven little ; if we forgive none, we pray that 
we may not be forgiven. What a fearful prayer ! To go 
upon our knees, to clasp our hands and close our eyes, to 
bow our heads, and then, in the solemn tones of prayer, 
ask God never to forgive us our sins ! never to blot them 
from the book of His remembrance ! but as we cherish with 
emotions of hatred the trespasses of our fellow mortals 
against us, so we beg God to cherish the remembrance of 
our transgressions, and to nurse up His wrath against us 
until the judgment hour ! He surely is unworthy to 
receive of God forgiveness of his ten thousand talent debt, 
who is unwilling to pass over the hundred pence trespass of 
his fellow servant! "And think not," says Archbishop 
Leighton, " to satisfy God with superficial forgiveness and 
reconcilements, saying I will forgive, but will not forget,' - ' 
&c. Would we be content of such pardon of God ? to have 
only a present forbearance of revenge, so that He should not 



THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 53 

quarrel with us, but no further friendship with him; that 
he should either use strangeness with us and not speak to 
us, or only for fashion's sake; and yet such are many of 
our reconcilements of our brethren. God's way of forgive- 
ness is both thorough and hearty, both to forgive and to 
forget; His language is, "I- will forgive their iniquity, and 
I will remember their sin no more." And if thine be not 
so, thou hast no portion in His, for you only ask God to 
" forgive you as you forgive others." 

Lastly, there is laid upon us a Divine injunction to the 
performance of this duty. In addition to the directions of 
our Lord, already quoted, there are very many other texts 
enforcing the same truth. St. Paul's sentiments may be 
condensed in his direction " owe no man anything, but to 
love one another," "be ye kind one to another, tender- 
hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake 
hath forgiven you." St. James's views are expressed in the 
words, " He shall have judgment without mercy that hath 
showed no mer ( cy." St. Peter's earnest exhortation is, 
" above all things have fervent charity among yourselves ;" 
and St. John declares, "he that loveth not his brother 
abideth in death." And when to these apostolic testimonies 
you add the great law that comprehends within itself all 
the duties of the second table, " Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bour as thyself;" and the grand exemplification of this 
rule in the example of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
whose steps we are to follow, whose mind we are to pos- 
sess, whose spirit we are to copy; — what more cogent 



54 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

motives could be found to press upon us this holy and for- 
giving spirit with which God is so well pleased ? 

As Christians then — as followers of the meek and for- 
giving Jesus — as those who hope that the immense debt 
of their sins has been forgiven by God, let us go out into 
the world and act towards our fellow men as God has 
acted towards us ; for " it is the glory of a man to pass by 
a transgression ; but to forgive, as we are forgiven of God, 
is Divine." 



% $w& gul 



THE EICH FOOL. 

"And he spake a parable unto thein, saying, The ground of a certain rich man 
brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I 
do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits ? And he said, This will I 
do : I will pull down my barns, and build greater ; and there will I bestow all my 
fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid 
up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto 
him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee : then whose shall 
those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for 
himself, and is not rich toward God." St. Luke, xii. 16-21. 

A STRIKING feature in the parables of Jesus Christ is 
their adaptation to the immediate circumstances in 
connexion with which they were delivered. 

They are not fetched from afar — detached and isolated 
allegories. They are not strained and forced into positions 
to which they are not adapted ; but they fall in most natu- 
rally with the subject of His discourse, and are mortised 
and tenoned so aptly to the occasion, that we can scarcely 
see the joint by which they are framed together. 

The parable of the Rich Fool furnishes an instance of 
this felicitous illustration. 

In the midst of a discourse to his disciples, one of the 
company, impatient of spiritual truth, and anxious only 
for worldly benefit, said unto Him, " Master, speak to my 

57 



58 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

brother, that he may divide the inheritance with me ," but 
Jesus, aware of the jealousy of the Jews, should he exer- 
cise any judicial functions, " said unto him, Man, who made 
me a judge or a divider over you?" 

Whether this was a real cause, wherein a wronged bro- 
ther desired one like our Lord, whom he considered a just 
umpire, to arbitrate between them, or whether, like the 
question of the Herodians about the tribute-money, or the 
efforts of the Scribes and Pharisees to extort from him a 
judgment concerning the woman professedly taken in adul- 
tery, a mere feint to entrap him in his words, and, by caus- 
ing him to exercise civil jurisdiction, furnish a ground of 
complaint against him, as a traitor or usurper, we know 
not. He was not entrapped, but, disclaiming all civil au- 
thority, and persisting in that of the Teacher, He warns 
him whose heart is so set upon a worldly inheritance — 
" Take heed, and beware of covetousness ; for a man's life 
consisteth not in the abundance of things which he pos- 
sesseth.' 

This great truth — that the real interests of life, the soul's 
life, lie outside our worldly possessions— a truth so opposed 
to the usual doctrines and feelings of the worldling, He en- 
forces by a short but forcible parable, wherein covetousness, 
in its relations to God and man, time and eternity, is com- 
prehensively fpfrrtrayed. 

Having delivered this parable and sealed it upon the 
mind by an aphoristic moral, Jesus resumes his discourse 
to his disciples, and leaves the offended brother to ponder 
the solemn truths w T hich he had heard. 



THE RICH FOOL. 59 

The first thing presented to us in this parable is the 
fact, that the riches of this man were honestly acquired. 
It was the legitimate produce of his fields. " The ground 
of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully." His 
wealth was not wrung from penury, extorted by oppression, 
or amassed by fraudulent trade. It was not the result of 
cupidity and avarice, seeking out every avenue to gain 
and every method of accumulation, but the product of 
honest industry, crowned with the Divine blessing, " which 
maketh the earth to bring forth abundantly and the clouds 
to drop fatness." 

It was highly important to the success of this parable, 
that the riches of this man should be of this honest sort, 
for, had they been ill-gotten gains, the rebuke, in the minds 
of most persons, would have rested upon the manner in 
which he acquired riches, rather than in the trusting to 
riches itself, however honestly obtained. 

With the increase of his wealth, however, there is found 
no opening of his heart. The liberality of God to him 
calls out no liberality from him towards his fellow men ; 
but, intent only upon hoarding up what he has, " he thought 
within himself, ' what shall I do, because I have no room 
where to bestow my fruits ?' " 

"He thought within himself!" how expressive of the 
internal working of covetousness, that dares not utter itself 
in words, but that plots its plans in the recesses of the 
heart, away from the sight of men, but not away from the 
eyes of God. 

Having revolved the matter on wholly selfish principles, 



60 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

never once thinking that he was God's steward to disburse 
those riches, rather than his banker to hoard them; he 
comes to a resolve " to pull down his barns, and build 
greater," saying, " and there will I bestow all my fruits and 
my goods." Beautifully does Ambrose allude to his per- 
plexity about "having no room where to bestow his fruits." 
" No room !" " Thou hast barns — the bosoms of the needy ; 
the houses of the widows ; the mouths of orphans." 

To relieve the poor and the destitute did not, however, 
enter into his calculations ; self-aggrandizement was his end 
and aim, as is evident by the address which he makes to 
his soul in view of the increase of his riches : " Soul, thou 
hast much goods laid up for many years : take thine ease, 
eat, drink, and be merry." He felt himself placed by his 
actual abundance, beyond the caprice of fortune, and not 
thinking of the uncertainty of life, he settles down in the 
comfortable assurance, that henceforth his life will be one 
of enjoyment, with no cares to perplex, no toil to fatigue, 
no poverty to cramp, no fear to paralyze the desires and 
affections of his heart. 

To human eyes, how bright and beautiful his prospect ! 
The future lay spread out before him enamelled with light ; 
visions of joy danced in jocund rounds before his eyes ; no 
thought had he of sorrow; no care for the morrow; no 
concern for eternity. He had entrenched his heart about 
with gold; adversities surely could not make a breach 
there ! He had arranged all his schemes of life ; death 
surely would not interrupt his long-cherished plans ! He 
had just reached the point where most of all desired to 



THE RICH FOOL. 61 

live; the grave surely would not yawn beneath him at 
such a time ! It never seems to have occurred to him that 
God, and not himself, was the disposer of his wealth, his 
happiness, his life. Absorbed in the things of time, his 
crops, his fields, his barns, he totally forgot his soul, or had 
no other idea of it than that of a gross and sensual sub- 
stance that could be filled and satisfied with the grovelling 
things of earth. He was a materialist in doctrine, and a 
sensualist in practice. 

But in this state of peace, plenty, and pleasure, his 
thoughts stretching out into the future, and his plans 
maturing to perfection, he is suddenly aroused by the voice 
of God, saying unto him, "Thou fool, this night thy soul 
shall be required of thee : then whose shall those things be 
which thou hast provided ?" What a startling annunciation 
this ! the curfew bell of the soul, extinguishing every light 
of hope and of joy, leaving it in the blackness of darkness 
for ever ! He was a u fool" to imagine that the soul needed 
no preparation for an exchange of worlds, — for none he 
made or thought of. He was a " fool" for supposing that 
his soul would be satisfied with wealth or pleasures of this 
world. He was a "fool" for believing that life had no 
other purpose than self-gratification, no other ends than 
sensual delights. He was a " fool" in thinking that his 
riches were his own, to hoard them in barns, rather than 
intrusted to him as a steward to disburse to the Lord's 
poor, and for the Lord's service. 

Alas ! how quickly do his dreams of pleasure, and 
schemes of greatness, and hopes of life, vanish at the 



62 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

awful voice of God. Barns, stores, fruits, pleasures are 
scattered by that dread annunciation, " This night thy soul 
shall be required of thee I" Instead of building for him a 
barn, they must dig a grave ; instead of having "much 
goods laid up for many years," he had nothing laid up for 
eternity; instead of his soul taking ease and being merry, 
he must lie down in everlasting sorrow, saying " to corrup- 
tion, thou art my father ; to the worm, thou art my mother 
and my sister." So great is the change, so sudden the 
surprise, so mighty the wreck of wealth when God calls 
the sinner to his bar. 

It was a saying of some of the Jewish doctors, that the 
angel Gabriel drew out the souls of the righteous by a 
gentle kiss upon their mouths : but not thus gentle was the 
death of the rich fool ; for in the language of Theophylact, 
" terrible angels, like pitiless exactors of tribute, required 
of him, as a disobedient debtor, his soul." His departure 
was like that described by Job : " The rich man shall lie 
down, but he shall not be gathered : he openeth his eyes 
and he is not ; terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest 
stealeth him away in the night, and as a storm hurleth him 
out of his place; for God shall cast upon him and not 
spare ; he would fain flee out of his hand." 

Of the rich man thus driven away in his wickedness, 
Jesus well asks, " Then whose shall those things be which 
thou hast provided?" He gathered, but another shall 
scatter ; he laid up in store, but another shall lay out in 
waste, and what he provided for himself shall be used by 



THE RICH FOOL. 63 

others : in the words of the Psalmist, " He heapeth up 
riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them." 

Having thus interested them in the parable, our Lord 
draws out the moral in a short but comprehensive sentence. 
" So is every one that layeth up treasure for himself, and is 
not rich towards God." " So," — there is emphasis in this 
word, as it throws us back upon certain results, brought out 
in the rich man's case, which will find perhaps their parallel 
in the results of all who like him, " lay up treasure for 
themselves, and are not rich towards God." " So," in the 
suddenness with which they shall be called away from their 
barns and wealth. " So," in the scattering at their death 
of the riches, so carefully gathered in their life. " So," in 
the requirements which will be made of their stewardship 
at the bar of God. "So," in the folly of their course in 
setting their hearts solely upon things present and earthly. 
" So," in the final ruin and misery which await all such 
rich fools beyond the grave. 

But what is meant by "laying up treasure for himself?" 
The great pursuit of life, with most men, is the acquisition 
of wealth, as in the possession of it they expect to find 
their chief good and happiness. That money is the great 
idol of mankind, is evident to the most superficial observer. 
It is true that the children of this world have " Lords 
many and gods many," but to Mammon is paid the chief 
homage of their hearts, and minds, and strength. Other 
idols have strong and powerful attractions, but their altars 
are deserted when Mammon beckons them away. The 
softest blandishments of pleasure, the most stirring scenes 



64 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

of ambition, the attractive pursuits of learning, yield to his 
superior claims. All, of every rank and condition, are 
gathered together to the dedication of " the image of gold," 
which the Prince of this world hath set up in the plains 
of earth. For money, life is perilled, health sacrificed, and 
youth blighted in the bud. For money, peace is discarded, 
home abandoned, and friends deserted. There is nothing 
men will not do to get money ; to acquire it they will break 
every law of God, and every edict of man. They will 
stifle conscience, hoodwink reason, quench the Holy Spirit, 
and barter every hope of heaven. Such is the universal 
passion, as demoralizing to man as it is hateful to God. 

Leaving this general truth, and descending to particulars, 
the man who layeth up treasures for himself is one who 
regards his own interests alone. The eminently selfish 
man ; such an Cme strives for riches, because riches beget 
honour. Want is always obsequious to wealth; penury 
always pays homage to plenty. He strives for riches, 
because riches bring pleasure. With wealth he can gratify 
his senses, his appetites, his passions. He can with it build 
lordly mansions, set up a stately equipage, array himself 
in costly garments, and fare sumptuously every day. Pie 
strives for riches, because riches create influence and 
friends. "The rich man," says Solomon, " hath many 
friends;" and again, "the rich man's wealth is his strong 
city." A moneyed man is always an influential man ; he is 
always surrounded by those who call themselves friends, 
though in reality fawning sycophants, human parasites. 
If born in poverty, his ambition is to rank among the rich ; 



THE RICH FOOL. 05 

if born to fortune, he seeks to excel his ancestral wealth. 
If he spring from ignominy, he wishes to throw a mantle 
of gold over his mother's shame ; if the scion of rank, he 
longs to quarter the arms of mammon on the heraldic 
shield of a noble lineage. Is he ignorant? wealth can 
atone for stupidity; is. he learned? wealth can ennoble 
knowledge, for " the crown of the wise is their riches." 

Thus does the man, who layeth up riches for himself, 
manifest, at all times (though it is often covered up from 
public view by an outward benevolence, which, after all, is 
concentrated egotism), a grasping avarice, a clenching cove- 
tousness, a blunted conscience, a contracted, indurated 
heart. Self is the centre, self the radii, self the circum- 
ference of his plans. 

But he who layeth up riches for himself is one who re- 
gards this world alone. All the aims of such a man are 
bounded by the horizon of earth. He looks not beyond 
the earthly and sensual gratification which riches bestow, 
and he thinks not and cares not for another state of being. 
He counts upon life as extending many years ; he boldly 
lays down plans which stretch far into the future ; he toils 
on as if there was no death to interrupt his labours, as if 
life's tide would never ebb, as if earth had for him no grave. 
The world fills his eye, engrosses his mind, absorbs his 
affections, and consumes his strength. Oh, the short-sight- 
edness and narrow-mindedness of the rich man ! Well did 
did David pray, "deliver my soul from men of the world, 
who have their portion in this life !" Well might our 
Lord declare, " It is easier for a camel to go through the 



66 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the king 
dom of Heaven !" Well may God say of such, " Thou 
fool !" for when he shall be brought down to the grave, it 
shall be said, " Lo, this is the man that made not God his 
strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches ; there- 
fore shall his riches, like canker, eat into his soul for ever." 
This is an outline sketch of one " who layeth up riches for 
himself;" and if it appears so selfish and grovelling to us, 
how abhorrent must it be to Him, who, looking beyond the 
outside coverings, searcheth the reins and trieth the hearts 
of the children of men ! 

But what is involved in the idea of being rich towards 
God? 

This implies two things: 1. Such a using of riches as 
shall result to the glory of God. How this can be done is 
indicated in the 33d verse of this chapter — " Sell that ye 
have and give alms ; provide yourselves bags which wax 
not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not ;" and 
by the 20th verse of the 6th chapter of St. Matthew — "Lay 
up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth 
nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break 
through nor steal." 

Riches are used to the glory of God, and thus become, 
in a figurative sense, "treasures in heaven," when the 
possessors of them regard themselves as stewards of God's 
bounty, and expend what they have in the extension of 
Christ's kingdom on earth. 

It must be confessed that much of the so-called benevo- 
lence of the day is nothing but refined selfishness, or ego- 



THE RICH FOOL. 67 

tistical philanthropy. Many give largely to a charitable 
object, because they know that a trumpet will be sounded 
before their alms, and it will " be seen of men." This is 
not true Christian benevolence, which, regarding ourselves 
as " bought with a price," and nothing that we have as 
our own, uses all in subordination to the one sacred prin- 
ciple of " doing all to the glory of God." The noblest use, 
then, to which wealth can be put, is to use it in carrying 
on those ordinances of grace and institutions of religion 
which are linked with Christ's glory and man's salvation. 

As these ordinances and institutions are extended, souls 
are saved, and every soul saved is a treasure laid up in 
heaven ; and as these means of grace are, in their earthly 
operations, sustained by money, so do we, through these 
benefactions, fulfil our Lord's injunction, and " lay up for 
ourselves treasures in heaven," beyond the reach of thief, 
of rust, and of moth. 

2. The expression, being rich towards God, implies a 
being rich in respect to God or Divine blessings. Under 
this phase of the subject, the riches do not consist in silver 
and gold, and goods, and fields, and barns, and plenty, but 
in that wealth of soul which is given by " the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with 
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, in whom 
we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of 
sins according to the riches of His grace." He only is truly 
rich who has " put on Christ ;" " for in Him dwelleth all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily ;" for of such Christians the 
Apostle says, " all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ 



68 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

is God's." He, therefore, who is so living by faith in the 
Son of God as to be daily advancing in godliness of heart, 
is, through the power of the Holy Ghost, laying up in 
heaven treasures of love, joy, hope, peace — those soul- 
riches which will endure unto everlasting life. When 
called from earth, instead of being like the rich man, 
wrenched away from all his goods, wherein he trusted and 
delighted, he will pass to the full possession and enjoyment 
of that eternal, all-glorious, and undefiled inheritance which 
Christ hath reserved for him in heaven. He has sent his 
treasures before him, and death will bring him to his pos- 
sessions again. These two classes comprise all members 
of the human family. Under one or other of these heads 
may each living being be ranked. To which do you 
belong ? Are you one of those laying up riches for your- 
selves? endeavouring to satisfy your immortal soul with 
the husks of earth? who live only for the world? who 
concentrate all their interests in time ? who virtually 
ignore the soul, and heaven, and God ? And do you not 
for such conduct deserve to be called a fool ? This is God's 
epithet — the deliberate judgment of infinite knowledge and 
wisdom; and it will be confirmed bye and bye by the 
accordant verdict of the universe. And what will you do 
when He whom you have thus far set at nought shall say, 
" This night thy soul shall be required of thee!" 

To all such let me urge at once a radical change of con- 
duct. • Be no longer one of those who lay up treasures for 
themselves, but join yourselves to those who are rich towards 
God. Use your substance in such a manner as shall best 



THE RICH FOOL. 69 

prove your love, and gratitude, and reverence for God, and 
best advance the glory of His name and the salvation of 
souls; and especially seek those spiritual riches which 
alone are to be found in Christ Jesus. The riches of faith, 
of hope, of love, of joy and peace in the Holy Ghost; 
" durable riches," which will ever increase in value, and 
ever impart bliss, when the world, with its treasures of 
gold and silver and precious stones, shall be burned up. 
Let thy possessions be laid up in " everlasting habitations," 
not stored up on a world devoted to destruction. 



Jmratai atfo Satotfe. 



POUNDS AND TALENTS. 

"The kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who 
called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave 
five talents, to another two, and to another one ; to every man according to his 
several ability ; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the 
five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And 
likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had 
received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After a long 
time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that 
had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou 
deliveredst unto me five talents : behold, I have gained besides them five talents 
more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; thou 
hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things : 
enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came 
and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents : behold, I have gained two 
other talents besides them. His lord said unto them, Well done, good and faithful 
servant ; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over 
many things : enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Then he which had received the 
one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping 
where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strewed : And I was 
afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth : lo, there thou hast that is thine 
His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou 
knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strewed : 
Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my 
coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent 
from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that 
hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance : but from him that hath not, 
shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable 
servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 

Matt. xxv. 14-30. 

73 



74 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

"A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, 
and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, 
and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a 
message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And it 
came to pass, that, when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he 
commanded these servants to be called unto him to whom he had given the money, 
that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the 
first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said unto him, 
Well, thou good servant : because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou 
authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath 
gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities. 
And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid 
up in a napkin : For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man ; thou takest 
up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith 
unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou 
knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that 1 laid not down, and reaping 
that I did not sow : Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that 
at my coming I might have required mine own with usury ? And he said unto 
them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten 
pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto 
you, That unto every one which hath shall be given ; and from him that hath not, 
even that he hath shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies, which 
would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." 

Luke, xix. 12-27. 

THESE parables are similar, without being identical. 
They were delivered on different occasions, and for 
different purposes; but though they have some points of 
divergence, they have many of convergence, and are suffi- 
ciently alike in parabolical structure and 'practical design 
to be treated under one head, as enforcing the one great 
truth pertaining to the trusts confided to us by God : 
" Occupy till I come !" 

In the parable of the Pounds, spoken in the house of 
Zaccheus, and recorded by St. Luke, where it is said, "A 



POUNDS AND TALENT? 75 

certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for 
himself a kingdom, and to return ;" and of whom it is 
subsequently added, " but his citizens hated him, and sent 
a message after him, saying, " we will not have this man to 
reign over us;" there is evidently an historical allusion to 
the political condition of Judea under the Roman power. 

Judea had been conquered by the Romans, under 
Pompey, 63 B. C, and though it was still governed in part 
by native princes, yet they ruled as deputies of Rome, and 
under its protectorate. Those, therefore, who, by hereditary 
succession or interest, thought they had any title to the 
government of the Jewish provinces, sought of course to 
confirm their claim by an appeal to the Emperor or Senate 
of the imperial city. Thus Herod the Great hastened to 
Rome, to obtain the kingdom of Judea from Antony, which 
having received, he was solemnly proclaimed King of the 
Jews. By the last will and testament of this monarch, 
his son Archelaus was constituted ruler of Judea, Samaria, 
and Idumea, yet could not enter upon his Ethnarchship 
until his dignity was confirmed by Augustus. Accordingly 
he went to Rome, literally " into a far country, to receive 
for himself a kingdom;" but the Jews, knowing his 
purpose, sent thither fifty ambassadors, to entreat Augustus 
that Archelaus might not be made their king, and were so 
far successful that, though Augustus confirmed him in his 
government as Ethnarch, he would not invest him with 
the regal name and dignity. The allusion of our Lord, 
therefore, to this well-known historical fact, gave deepe 



76 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

significance to the parable, and made the people more 
attentive to the truths which it was intended to convey. 

But, while it had this historical basis, it had also a 
prophetic aspect ; for that " nobleman" was Christ, " heir 
of all things," "the first-born of every creature;" that 
" travelling into a far country," the coming down of the 
Lord Jesus from heaven to earth ; that " kingdom" which 
he came " to receive," was the Church ; that " calling his 
own servants, and delivering unto them his goods," the 
selection of His Apostles and ministers, and the committing 
to them the " gifts" and " graces" which are the spiritual 
"pounds" and "talents" of the Church; that "taking his 
journey," in the one case, and that "return," in the other, 
His ascension into Heaven ; that " hatred" of " his citi- 
zens," and their sending " a message after him, saying, We 
will not have this man to reign over us," the secret enmity 
and open opposition of the human heart against the 
spiritual reign of Jesus Christ. 

In both of these parables we find that certain moneys 
were given to certain servants. The first bestows "ta- 
lents :" giving to one "'five talents," or about six thousand 
dollars; "to another two," or nearly twenty-four hundred 
dollars; "to another, one," or twelve hundred dollars. 
The second gives to each of ten persons a pound (mina), 
equivalent to twenty dollars. In the first parable, our 
Lord was addressing His Apostles only, to whom had been 
specially intrusted large gifts, for the planting, erecting, 
teaching, governing of the Church ; well expressed by the 
term "talents," as distinguished from those lower, yet still 



POUNDS AND TALENTS. 77 

important gifts, which pertain to private Christians, and 
which, when Jesus addressed His "disciples," He called by 
the humbler designation of "pounds." In both instances, 
however, the pounds and the talents were given to be im- 
proved and augmented, by such an occupancy or use as 
would increase the amount originally bestowed, and bring 
in large profits to the holder. 

Years roll on ; the several servants pursue different 
courses with their talents and pounds ; until, " after a long 
time," as St. Matthew expresses it, "the lord of those ser- 
vants cometh and reckoneth with- them;" or, as St. Luke 
says, the returned nobleman "commanded these servants 
to be called unto him to whom he had given the money, 
that he might know how much each man had gained by 
trading." 

On presenting themselves before their respective lords, 
it is found, that some improve their means more than 
others. He to whom five talents had been given had 
" traded with the same, and made them other five talents ;" 
"likewise he that had received two, he also had gained 
other two;" one of those to whom one pound had been 
delivered came, " saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten 
pounds;" and another reported, "Lord, thy pound hath 
gained five pounds." In the case of the recipient of the 
talents, there was simply a duplicating of the original sum 
received, evincing diligence and fidelity in the trust com- 
mitted to them ; but in the case of the pounds, the increase 
was vastly greater; instead of being twofold, it was, in 
one instance, tenfold, and in another, fivefold; and this, 



78 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

too, with less original capital, thereby showing a greater 
zeal in the lord's service, and deeper wisdom in business 
plans than those to whom had been committed the more 
valuable talents ; and as our Lord uttered no words without 
meaning, may not this be designed to show us, by a delicate 
yet truthful allusion, that not those alone who receive 
even two or five talents, the higher denomination of God's 
gifts, shall be rewarded with kingly munificence ; but that 
those who rightly employ even the humbler trust of a sin- 
gle pound, may, by faithful effort, so improve the little, as 
to become a ruler over ten cities or over five cities ; far 
outstripping, in real increase of grace and fruit, those to 
whom had been intrusted higher gifts and larger portions. 
It is not those who have " talents," costly though they be, 
and minister as they may in the high places of the 
Church, admired, honoured, blessed, who will prove them- 
selves the most active accumulators of the Divine blessing, 
or receive the most flattering plaudits ; on the contrary, 
some humbler Christian, scarcely known even in the 
Church to which he belongs, some diligent cultivator of his 
single " pound," may, through prayer and faith and zeal, 
bring in from his small portion a larger revenue of glory 
to God and blessedness for souls, than the more richly en- 
dowed and more conspicuous possessor of his Lord's 
bounty. 

The rewards bestowed upon these profitable servants, 
varied with their several degrees of fidelity. The possessor 
of five talents, whose industry had " gained besides them 
five talents more," receives the approbation of his lord, 



POUNDS AND TALENTS. 79 

and the assurance that he would make him " ruler over 
many things." The diligent improver of two talents 
obtains the same commendation, with the promise that as 
he "had been faithful over a few things/' he would make 
him " ruler over many things ;" while both received the 
invitation " enter thou into the joy of thy lord ;" implying, 
according to Oriental usage, that the lord had celebrated 
his return by a sumptuous feast, to which these his ser- 
vants had been invited, and by this invitation and partici- 
pation of the feast, received manumission, and thus as 
"freedmen" were designated to rule over others. The 
indefiniteness which attaches to the rewards in the para- 
ble of the talents, does not obtain in that of the pounds. 
Here all is distinct : for he whose pound had gained ten 
pounds, and he whose pound had multiplied to ^.ve, were 
severally made rulers over ten and five cities ; in evident 
allusion to the custom formerly prevalent in the East, of 
assigning the government or revenues of a certain number 
of cities as rewards to meritorious officers, as Artaxerxes 
assigned several cities to Themistocles for his services in 
the cause of Persia ; of which cities, Myus was to supply 
him with viands, Magnesia with bread, Lampsacus with 
wines. 

The disproportion between fidelity in the use of a single 
pound of Hebrew money, and the reward consequent 
thereon, of being made a ruler over five or ten cities, can- 
not fail to arrest attention ; and yet how beautifully does 
this apparent disproportion illustrate a marked feature of 
the Divine economy, whereby God rewards not deeds, but 



80 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

motives ; not results, but principles. So here the princi- 
ples of faithful zeal to the humblest trust is requited by 
transferring that lowly labourer to a broader field of action, 
where this principle, so fully tested in small matters, has 
now scope for noble and efficient development. And a 
blessed thought it is, that we are not rewarded so much 
for the outward and visible ministrations of duty, as for the 
inward and spiritual principles which guide our souls, which 
principles indeed are not of our own getting, but are 
implanted in us by the Holy Ghost. Hence it follows 
that the humblest servant of God may attain to heights in 
glory, and reaches of power, far above what may be 
accorded to the more seemingly active and fruitful pro- 
fessor, because of the different principles which were the 
motive power in each. 

In both parables, however, we find one instance of mis- 
improvement of the money bestowed. The recipient of 
"one talent," after wrongfully accusing his lord as "an 
hard man," tells him, " I was afraid, and went and hid thy 
talent in the earth;" and one of the receivers of the pound 
brings it back, saying, " Behold, here is thy pound, which 
I have kept laid up in a napkin ;" at the same time laying 
grievous things to his charge. Their lord answers in both 
cases — if you knew that I was an austere or hard man, 
" taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did 
not sow," you should have put my money " into the bank," 
or " to the exchangers," and then at my coming I should 
have received mine own with usury. By pursuing such 
a course you would have lost nothing, even though I was 



POUNDS AND TALENTS. 81 

such an one as you represent me to be ; while my money, 
instead of lying idle, would have been gathering the usual 
per centum of interest from those whose business it was to 
exchange the different coins of Eastern currency for the 
shekel of the temple; and who thus, upon their little 
tables or counters, carried on a profitable trade with " the 
strangers, Jews, and proselytes," who resorted to Jerusalem 
for business or devotion. Unable to answer a word in 
extenuation of such neglect, they are both deprived of the 
sum originally placed in their keeping, and cast as " unpro- 
fitable servants" into outer darkness, or as enemies of their 
lord brought and slain before him. Such was the deserved 
end of those who could impugn the honesty, clemency, and 
goodness of their respective masters, as well as abuse, by 
not rightly employing, the trusts committed to their care. 
The bearing of these parables is very plain, and the truths 
they teach are very important. 

God has committed to us certain interests which pertain 
to man as a moral and accountable being — the present and 
future interests of the soul. These, like the ten pounds to 
the ten servants, are committed alike to all. But, though 
God has given a soul and a conscience, and the light of 
nature, to every child of Adam, and for the occupancy of 
which trust each will be called into judgment at the great 
day, yet do we also learn, by the parable of the Talents, 
that, over and above these interests, which are common to 
all, there are special deposits of ability and grace made to 
some individuals, which bring them under heavier respon- 
sibility and demand of them peculiar fidelity and zeal. 
6 



82 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

Among these may be mentioned, First, superior mental 
endowments. The varieties of mind are as great as the 
varieties of features and temperament; and while some 
persons evidence so low a rationality, as to seem but one 
link removed from a high order of instinct, others exhibit 
powers of intellect so gigantic, so noble, so elevated above 
the mass of minds, as to compel the homage of the world. 
Whenever God has bestowed these superior endowments, 
it has always been with the injunction, " Occupy till I 
come." He did not bestow them merely to subserve indi- 
vidual aggrandisement, that the possessor might leave 
behind him the impress of his genius stamped upon the 
laws, literature, science, or institutions of the world ; but to 
cultivate them to their utmost capacity, and put them to 
their highest efforts in advancing the glory of God and the 
salvation of souls. Not that all minds should occupy 
themselves solely on religious topics ; not that all such 
mighty men of thought should preach the Gospel ; but 
that the ultimate aim and tendency of all mental efforts, 
on whatever subject they may be occupied, should be "to 
glorify our Father which is in Heaven." 

We assert, without the fear of contradiction, that there 
is no department of solid learning which does not, if 
rightly cultivated, lead the mind directly or indirectly to 
God, and none which cannot directly or indirectly be made 
to augment his glory. All the lines of knowledge centre 
in God ; and the circle of sciences, as it is called, is but the 
earthly circumference of that wisdom which radiates from 
the Omniscient Mind : the more diligently, therefore, we 



POUNDS AND TALENTS. 8(5 

follow up any one of these radii to its centre, the nearer 
do we get to God. Yet the vast majority of great minded 
men cast off God and restrain prayer, and, in the selfish 
pursuit of personal honour, and the embalmment of fame, 
employ their powers rather against, than for, God ; rather 
to the dishonour than the honour of their Creator. It is 
lamentable to observe, even with superficial eye, the enor- 
mous waste and misapplication of the human mind. See 
intellects of the highest order bending almost angelic 
energies to the purpose of ministering to the amusement, 
the pride, the sensuality, the taste, the pomp of this fallen 
world. There has, for example, been more waste of mental 
strength in striving after the batons and ribbons and titles 
of military glory, than would suffice to convert the world 
to Christ. The intellect which has been lavished upon the 
drama, from the days of Thespis and iEschylus to the 
present time, in writing and acting plays, would, if con- 
centrated on the advancement of Divine truth, have made 
the earth " a dwelling-place of righteousness." 

What a glorious spectacle would earth present, could we 
behold all its noble intellects bowing, like the wise men 
from the East, at the feet of Jesus, and presenting unto 
him " the gold, frankincense, and myrrh" of their sanctified 
minds ! for every mind, no matter how tall, how strong, 
how rich, which is not consecrated to Jesus, is morally lost, 
and can never fulfil the purposes of its creation. An intel- 
lect, unbaptized by the blood of Christ, and unsanctified by 
the Holy Ghost, is an immortal curse : the curse may not 
come in this life, but it will fasten upon it beyond the grave. 



84 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

Ever keep in view the solemn fact, that God has given you 
minds to educate for eternity, and to be expended in his 
glory; that he has enjoined upon you, "Occupy till 1 
come;" and that you can only fulfil the injunction by cul- 
tivating all your powers as under His eye, and for the 
bringing in of His kingdom. 

As among the talents or pounds committed to our care, 
we mention, Secondly, superior means of personal, social, 
or civil influence. These may arise from birth, education, 
fortune, standing in society, or personal endowments. 
Through the operation of one or more of these you come 
to be regarded with more respect or attention ; your 
opinions are more esteemed; your views are sought for, 
your wishes consulted ; and you find yourself wielding an 
influence more or less potent upon the circle around you. 
Whatever enables you then to mould or guide the opinions 
and actions of your fellow men, is a talent, a pound com- 
mitted to you, with the injunction of the Divine Giver, 
" Occupy till I come ;" and hence you are bound to make 
your influence healthful in all its operations, and beneficial 
wherever exerted. 

God demands that this influence should be on His side, 
that all the advantages which He has conferred upon you 
should be used in His service, and not be selfishly employed 
in seeking personal or family aggrandizement and distinc- 
tion. It is a lamentable fact that most of the influence 
which goes out from the educated, wealthy, and high-born 
classes, is baneful and debasing. They are the leaders in 
all sinful fashions and worldly schemes, — but very rarely 



POUNDS AND TALENTS. 85 

are they found doing the work of the Lord. Yet what a 
change would pass over society, if those who stand at the 
head springs of social life and civil affairs, directed their 
aim to the spiritual welfare of the souls of men, and put 
forth their influence under the guidance and baptism of the 
Holy Ghost ! This is what God requires ; this is the pur- 
pose for which He conferred these advantages, and for their 
proper use and occupancy He will at the last day make 
rigid inquisition. 

Thirdly : Wealth is another of the talents committed to 
the occupancy of some. As " we brought nothing into the 
world, and can carry nothing out of it," it is evident that 
what pecuniary means we have are the gift of God ; and 
hence, we are exhorted in the Bible — " thou shalt remem- 
ber the Lord thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power 
to get wealth." The property which we call ours we hold 
only as tenants at will ; God is the proprietor of all ; we 
are but the stewards of His bounty, solemnly responsible to 
Him for the disbursement of that wealth, be it more or less 
If now we squander it on our own persons or lusts or plea- 
sures ; if we withhold it from Christ, and refuse to use the 
Master's means for the Master's work ; if when self calls 
we pour it out freely, but when God calls we dole it out 
with reluctance, are we not sinning against our own souls 
and a holy God ? There is much force in the word " occu- 
py ;" it means, literally, to trade, to negotiate, as in com- 
merce or business ; and so we are to trade or carry on a 
spiritual commerce with the wealth which God has given 
us. We are to put it out to the Exchangers, those benevo- 



86 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

lent treasuries where we exchange dollars for Bibles, tracts, 
missionaries, Sunday-schools. We are to make investments 
in the Bank of Christian Enterprise, that we may gain the 
usury, the dividends of grace and love which He imparts to 
all who spend and are spent in His service. We are to 
trade with our wealth in such wise, that we may lay up 
treasures in heaven; for every investment of worldly means, 
made in the cause of Christ, and for His sake, will repay 
us, not only a large percentage of happiness here, but be 
honoured by our Lord with special grants of favour in the 
world to come. 

We might indicate many other talents committed to our 
trust; but time allows of but one more specification, and 
that is, our religious privileges. Greater gifts than these 
no man can receive. The pardon of God ; the sacrifice of 
Christ; the renewing of the Holy Ghost; the revelation 
of the Divine will ; the ministry of reconciliation ; the 
Church of the living God ; the ordinances of grace ! Can 
we adequately comprehend the value of talents like these ? 
In the possession of them we are peculiarly distinguished j 
" the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, and we 
have a goodly heritage." But for what purpose were these 
given ? Have we sought the offered pardon ? have we been 
washed in the sacrificial blood of the Redeemer ? have we 
been sanctified by the Spirit of Holiness ? have we made 
God's Word a light to our feet and a lamp to our path ? 
have we been led by this ministry to " the Lamb of God, 
who taketh away the sins of the world ?" have we united 
ourselves to this mystical body of Christ ? have we been 



POUNDS AND TALENTS. 87 

nourished and strengthened by the sacraments of Christ's 
institution? have we, in fine, so spiritually traded with 
these " unspeakable gifts," as, thereby, to make rich increase 
in grace and godliness? Are we diligently "occupying" 
them until we are called to "enter into the joy of our 
Lord?" 

But the final award is before us, and let us briefly mark 
its results. 

Those who have traded with their pounds and talents, 
and duplicated or multiplied them, are commended with 
the plaudit, "Well done, good and faithful servants;" are 
bidden to enter into the joy of thek Lord, and are 
appointed to rule in the heavenly kingdom. They are 
made to sit " in heavenly places in Christ Jesus ;" they 
" are called unto the marriage-supper of the Lamb ;" they 
"judge angels;" they are crowned and anointed "as kings 
and priests unto God." On the other hand, those who 
contemned their Lord, and wrapped their pound up " in a 
napkin," or buried their talent " in the earth," are " cast 
into outer darkness," and are visited with the pains and 
eternal woe of the second death ; and the one great 
thought which, like a red-hot share, shall plough its furrows 
in their inmost souls, is, that they had talents committed 
to their trust ; they had pounds, with which to trade ; but, 
by their own obstinacy and sinfulness, have wilfully put 
themselves into that place of torment, " where their worm 
dieth not, and their fire is not quenched ;" and, lest any 
should think that, because they have moderate or common 
abilities, and are not among the gifted, the wealthy, the 



88 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

influential, therefore they will not be condemned, our 
Saviour has brought out very distinctly the fact that the 
misapplication of small abilities will meet with condign 
punishment. Say not, " Since so little is committed to my 
charge, that it matters not how I administer that little. 
What signifies the little, whether it be done or left undone V 
for God requires as much fidelity and zeal in those to 
whom little is given, as in those to whom much is bestowed. 
The misimprovement of one talent, the hiding away of a 
one-pound ability, will call out the judgment of God. 
Remember, also, that, in both cases of delinquency, the 
servants did not waste or destroy the money given them : 
they only suffered it to lie idle and unimproved. This was 
their sin ; and the simple misimprovement of even one-pound 
abilities, the suffering to lie idle and unaccumulating but a 
single talent, is a crime so great in the sight of God, who 
has intrusted us with these for the promotion of our 
salvation, and the advancement of His glory, that He will 
punish it with casting such spiritual idlers, such moral 
sluggards, into outer darkness, "where there is weeping 
and wailing and gnashing of teeth." 

Every motive that can influence human conduct urges 
us to be faithful to the abilities and endowments which God 
has given us. The love that we should feel for the Giver, 
the value of the trusts committed to our care, the short 
time in which we are permitted to occupy them, the prolific 
increase which the right use of our pounds and talents will 
produce, the certainty of our Lord's return to inquire " how 
much every man had gained by trading," the fearful doom 



POUNDS AND TALENTS. 89 

which awaits the neglecter and idler even of the smallest 
trust, and the magnificent rewards of glory, of praise, of 
authority, of sovereignty, which are promised to the dili- 
gent and the faithful, conspire to press upon us the duty 
of rightly occupying our several talents, until, gaining for 
our Lord a revenue of glory here by their spiritual increase, 
He will say to each of us, at the last, " well done, good and 
faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 



% §mi gjwp: % |M Utag, 



THE LOST SHEEP: THE LOST MONET. 

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not 
leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until 
he find it ? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 
And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying 
unto them, Kejoice with me ; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say 
unto you, That likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more 
than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. 

"Either what woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not 
light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it ? And 
when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, say- 
ing, Rejoice with me ; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I 
say unto you, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner 
that repenteth." Luke xv. 3-10. 

THE three parables recorded in the fifteenth chapter of 
St. Luke, were spoken by our Lord in order to rebuke 
the murmuring of the Scribes and Pharisees, whose great 
complaint was, "This man receiveth sinners, and eateth 
with them." 

It seems that multitudes of the publicans and sinners 
had drawn near to Christ " to hear Him." These classes, 
hated as vile extortioners, and profligate livers, were 
regarded as beyond the pale of mercy, and outside the 
sympathies and courtesies of social life. The learned 
Scribe, swollen with the traditions of the elders, and proud 

93 



94 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

of the distinction which his legal knowledge secured, 
affected to despise the vulgar tax-gatherer, and the outcast 
sinner ; the phylacteried Pharisee, with his long prayers, 
and ostentatious alms, and minute ritualism, and self- 
created holiness, disdained the exactors of tribute, and the 
notoriously unclean, and would have felt that his fringed 
garments were soiled by a touch of such transgressors: 
and though their curiosity was stimulated to the utmost to 
, hear the Lord, yet they complained that they had to listen 
to His teachings in company with the publicans and the 
profligate, saying in disparagement of the Saviour, " This 
man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." 

This murmuring of the Pharisees and Scribes elicited 
from our Lord three parables, designed to illustrate the 
seeking love and receiving grace of God, and to vindicate 
his course in thus receiving sinners and eating with them. 
As the Saviour of men, it was important that we should 
know the grounds and methods of His procedure, when 
He undertook the restoration of our race ; and these He 
condescends to set forth, not by laboured argument, not by 
philosophical analysis, but by parables, illustrating to the 
humblest, as well as the highest, the purposes and dealings 
of God toward His rebellious children. 

It is wonderful, when we think of it, what weighty, 
sublime, and eternal truths are embedded in the simple 
parables of Jesus. While the sages of the world wrapped 
up their enigmatical propositions and mysterious sayings 
in the integuments of philosophy, or the embroidered robes 
of rhetoric; while the doctrines of human ethics were 



THE LOST SHEEP: THE LOST MONEY. 95 

couched in language high above the comprehension of the 
vulgar ; our Lord proclaimed His truths with clearness and 
fulness, and His language and illustrations, so far from 
covering up His thoughts, were rather like the veil of the 
atmosphere, enveloping all things indeed, yet the medium of 
a clear and perfect vision. It is easy enough to take a pigmy 
thought, and make it w 7 alk on high on the stilts of bombast 
and hyperbole. It is common enough to see a little thin 
idea that would not burden an infant's brain, puffed out 
with gaseous words, until it looms up and floats away in 
aerostatic nothingness; but it is evidence of a mind of 
Divine compass and power, to condense the infinite and 
eternal truths of the Godhead, in its schemes for man's 
redemption, into w 7 ords so few, and illustrations so simple, 
that the ignorant, the degraded, the little child even, can 
perceive and understand them. 

In both the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost 
Piece of Money, Christ takes common and almost every- 
day occurrences to illustrate why He received sinners and 
ate with them : illustrations which, while glorious as the 
unfoldings of Divine love, are yet exquisite in their very 
homeliness and simplicity. A man losing a sheep from his 
flock, a woman losing a piece of money from her scrip, are 
familiar and every-day occurrences ; yet, in the hands of the 
Saviour, they are made to stand out as the exponents of 
the great principles of the Divine economy in the salvation 
of mankind. 

The shepherd missed one sheep from his flock; and, ac- 
customed as the Eastern shepherds are to know the coun- 



96 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

tenance of each, and even to call each sheep by name, this 
loss would soon be discovered ; and when known, the 
faithful man would at once seek to reclaim the wanderer. 
Leaving the rest of the flock in the wilderness, not, indeed, 
in the sandy, howling wastes, but in the uninhabited yet 
grassy and pastoral plains or valleys, where they would 
have herbage and shelter, the shepherd goes out to seek 
and save that which was lost. He goes into the moun- 
tains ; he exposes himself to perils ; he endures fatigue ; 
he experiences great anxiety ; but does not give up the 
search "until he find it." And then, instead of beating 
the wayward sheep, or rudely driving it before him, or 
roughly upbraiding it for wandering, the shepherd takes 
the long-lost one in his arms, lays it on his shoulders, saves 
it from the weariness of travel and the accidents to which 
it might be exposed ; and thus, bearing his precious burden, 
" cometh home," and "calleth together his friends and 
neighbours, saying unto them, Kejoice with me, for I have 
found my sheep which was lost." 

But as, among his auditors, there were doubtless those 
who would better understand a different simile, our Lord 
condescends to take a very humble figure, and says, 
" Either what woman, having ten drachmas, if she lose one 
piece, doth not light a candle" — because the oriental houses 
have few openings or windows, and the extra candle-light 
would be needed — " and sweep the house" — not merely look 
through it, removing the furniture to make the search more 
thorough, but sweeping its floors, sweeping it by the light 
of the candle ; and to the cleansing of the broom she adds 



THE LOST SHEEP: THE LOST MONEY. 97 

the diligent search of the eye, and leaves no place unex- 
plored " until she find it ?" 

In the recovery both of the lost sheep and the lost coin, 
we find peculiar evidences of joy and peculiar language to 
express it. 

The returning shepherd, as he comes within sight of his 
flock, which he had left, now quietly browsing on the plain 
or folded for the night, calls out to the dwellers in the tent, 
" Kejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was 
lost ;" and, as they came out to meet the shepherd, weary 
and faint with his tedious search, and see the wandering 
sheep safe upon his shoulders, they respond loudly to his 
call, and mingle together their pastoral rejoicings. 

And when the poor woman, for we are led to infer that 
she was such, finds her lost drachma, she gathers her 
female friends to tell them of her success, and calls upon 
those who once sympathized with her loss — " Kejoice with 
me, for I have found the piece which I had lost." 

In what a graphic manner do these two parables set forth 
the seeking love of Jesus to our lost and. sinful race ! We 
are wanderers from God ; " all we, like sheep, have gone 
astray, we have turned every one to his own way," and had 
lost ourselves upon the dark mountains of sin and unbelief. 
The innocence which was once ours, and the companion- 
ship of angels which we were once privileged to enjoy, were 
voluntarily renounced ; and, forsaking the green pastures and 
still waters of the Lord's providing, we have strayed away 
from the Good Shepherd into the rugged paths and dangerous 
defiles of sin and woe. Originally made in the likeness of 



98 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

God, and once bearing in our souls the image and super- 
scription of our King, we have now lapsed from our rightful 
owner, and fallen away into the dust and earthiness of a 
deep moral debasement. But Christ, infinite in His love 
and mercy, did not leave us thus lost and wandering. He 
sought us out; He addressed Himself to the work of our 
recovery; He girded Himself about with the vestment of 
humanity ; He came to this sin-cursed earth, and wandered 
up and down in its highways and hedges, enduring the 
malice of enemies, the rebukes of the proud, the suspicions 
of friends, mockings and buffetings and countless sorrows, 
until, arrested as a malefactor, condemned as a blasphemer, 
crucified as a slave, the Good Shepherd had given his life 
for His sheep, and, that they might be saved, bowed His 
head and died. " He was wounded for our transgressions, 
He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our 
peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." 
In a most emphatic manner did Christ " go after the sheep 
that was lost until He find it." The love that prompted 
the search was an infinite love ; its well-spring was in the 
beginning ; it had flowed from all eternity, and its fulness 
and richness are best illustrated in the costliness of its 
sacrifice and the value of its atonement. It was not the 
lost sheep seeking out the Shepherd, and making efforts to 
get back to the fold ; there was in us no desire to return ; 
we loved our sins and we revelled in them ; and man eveu 
slew the Lord of life and glory, because he sought to redeem 
him from his sins. It was like the diseased and loathsome 
patient, killing the physician because he would rescue him 



THE LOST SHEEP: THE LOST MONEY. 99 

from his sickness, and give him health and soundness in- 
stead of rottenness and pain. 

What Christ did as our Good Shepherd, to seek and save 
us, may be learned in the wonderful record of His life, — 
for the thirty-three years of His earthly pilgrimage, were 
so many years of toil, anguish, endurance, and search after 
the wanderers from God. No dangers daunted Him, no 
fatigue exhausted Him, no obloquy turned Him aside, no 
assaults of enemies caused Him to desist. He plunged into 
the deepest thickets of sin ; He entered the most forbidding 
morasses of life ; He exposed himself in the most dangerous 
and darksome valleys of humanity, without regard to His 
own comfort, and at the sacrifice of His own blood, that 
He might find His lost sheep, and laying them on His 
shoulders return with them to His Father's fold rejoicing, 
seeing in their recovery "the travail of His soul," and 
being " satisfied." 

These parables were designed by our Lord to illustrate 
the great concern which He felt for souls. The value 
of the soul is well known to the Lord Jesus. We do not 
know it, because our arithmetic is finite, and it has no fac- 
tors to express the worth of an immortal spirit; we judge 
of everything by worldly standards, by what it can give us, 
or what it can do for us, as beings of time and earth ; con- 
sequently, that which enables us to rank high, to amass 
wealth, to secure praise, to dwell at ease, to live in pleasure, 
is that which most absorbs our thoughts and engages the 
powers of our being. Hence, the soul, in its eternal 
interests, is overlooked, or regarded as a disagreeable some- 



100 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

thing, ever standing in the way of our- pleasure and ad- 
vancement, which we would gladly be rid of if we could. 
The Blessed Saviour, having created the soul, having en- 
dowed it with its wondrous powers, having given it immor- 
tality as its birthright, knows its worth ; and when He saw 
us wandering into bye and forbidden paths, He knew the 
greatness of the loss which would ensue, and hence mani- 
fested such Divine concern to secure its recovery and salva- 
tion. He was happy in the glories which he had with the 
Father before the world was ; He was blessed in the wor- 
ship of the Angelic Host who ministered before Him ; but 
all this availed not ; His eye' saw, His heart loved our race, 
even though it was fallen and alien ;" and " not willing that 
any should perish," He came down to deliver from eternal 
ruin all who should believe on Him, and receive Him as the 
Saviour of their souls. There was deep concern in heaven 
for the soul of man. God felt it, and so felt it as to give 
His only begotten Son, that " whosoever believeth on Him 
might not perish, but have everlasting life;" and when it 
so moved the mind of Jehovah, how ought our minds to be 
under deepest concern for their recovery ! Did the shep- 
herd leave the ninety and nine un wandering ones, and go 
out into the mountains to seek and save one wanderer ? 
So the Lord of Glory left the innumerable company of un- 
sinning angels, that He might go forth to find the lost sheep, 
man ; so did He light the candle of revelation, and with 
the besom of a holy law, sweep the floor of this earthly 
house of our tabernacle, until he found the piece which was 
lost, relaxing no effort which Divinity could devise or exe- 



THE LOST SHEEP: THE LOST MONEY. 101 

cute, to recover the wanderer, and search out the lost ; for 
" He delighteth not in the death of a sinner, but rather that 
he should turn from his wickedness and live." 

The parable of the Lost Sheep also teaches us the tender 
care and compassion of our Lord towards the recovered 
wanderers. What could illustrate this more than the 
shepherd's act of laying the lost sheep, when he found it, 
" on his shoulders," and so bearing it home ? When Christ 
finds the wandering sinner, He does not roughly upbraid 
him, He does not drive him harshly before Him, but throws 
around him His loving arms, takes him to His bosom, lays 
him on His shoulder, where no harm can reach him, 
protects him by His hands, and pledges the mightiness of 
His own power to return the wanderer to the fold of God. 

And with what joy is the sinner welcomed ! It is faintly 
shadowed forth in the rejoicings made by the friends and 
neighbours of the shepherd and the woman at the reco- 
very of the lost sheep and the lost silver. It is more 
emphatically declared, in the words of the Saviour, after 
the parable of the Lost Sheep — "Likewise joy shall be in 
Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over 
ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance;" 
and in almost similar words after the parable of the Lost 
Piece of Silver — " Likewise I say unto you, there is joy in 
the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that 
repenteth." 

In this twice-uttered declaration Jesus enunciates the 
truth, that there is an interest and a sympathy felt for man 
by the angels in heaven ; a truth confirmed by several 



102 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

other passages of Scripture, wherein they are not only 
represented as " ministering spirits sent forth to minister to 
the heirs of salvation," but as desiring to look into the 
mysteries of mans redemption. 

There is something very sublime in the thought that 
angels take an interest in the moral affairs of this earth. 
Were our world the only orb which Divine power had 
framed and peopled, and poised in the else solitary field of 
space, there would be something of condescension in such 
holy beings, dwelling in the presence of God, stooping to 
interest their mighty minds and spotless souls in the 
spiritual affairs of men. 

But when we are compelled to believe, however humbling 
to human pride, that the earth which we inhabit is so small 
as to appear but a sparkling point to some, and not visible 
at all to other planets, even of our own solar system ; while 
myriads of suns, with attendant families of worlds, spangle 
the floor of heaven, and mock the powers of the most 
potent telescope ; then the condescension of the heavenly 
host becomes more marked and significant, and seems to 
indicate that there must have been some special display of 
God's glory on this little earth, to which other greater and 
brighter worlds were strangers ; and hence they concentrate 
upon this spot a more intense gaze, and feel for us a more 
vivid interest. The solution of this interest is found in 
the fact that, for all we know, this earth is the spot where 
was seen the highest display of God's moral glory, and where 
was waged the great battle of God's supremacy, in which 
sin and death were conquered, and grace and salvation won. 



THE LOST SHEEP: THE LOST MONET. 103 

We know not that any other world revolted from God ; 
we infer, indeed, from the transactions which took place 
here, that all other portions of His universe adhered to 
the holiness of their original creation ; and if, as we justly 
suppose, this earth alone broke out in rebellion, and threw 
off its allegiance to Jehovah, we can well understand how, 
for a time, the fact of such an outbreak would be heralded 
throughout the skies, and how the questions — shall rebel 
man be punished ? can rebel man be saved ? would for a 
season occupy the thoughts and fix the deepest interest in 
the heavenly host. In such a case, the littleness of the 
terrestrial spot was nothing— the greatness of the principle 
at stake was everything. The smallness of the world was 
lost sight of in the magnitude of the issue, even as the 
intrinsic worthlessness of Pharsalia, and Agincourt, and 
Waterloo, and Yorktown, is lost in the immense issues 
which were decided in battle on those fields of blood. 
The great principle that was here to be established, and 
the mighty wonder that was here to be disclosed, was the 
principle that " God could be just and yet the justifier of 
him that believeth on Jesus ;" and the awful mystery of a 
" God manifest in the flesh, seen of angels, believed on in 
the world," and redeeming that world by " humbling Him- 
self unto death, even the death of the cross." Hence 
angels gathered around this single wandering world ; hence 
they watched the dealings of God with its sinful inhabit- 
ants ; and hence we find them, in all ages of the world, 
mingling their services to carry on the scheme of grace in 
its various manifestations — Patriarchal, Levitical, and 



104 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

Christian. Angels came to Abraham, and Lot, and Jacob, 
and Moses. Angels appeared to David, to Elijah, to 
Daniel, to Ezekiel. Angels foretold the birth of Christ to 
Zech arias, to Mary, to Joseph, to the Bethlehem shep- 
herds. Angels ministered to Christ on the mount of temp- 
tation, in the garden of Gethsemane, at the rock-hewn 
sepulchre, and announced to the women who had gone 
thither to anoint the Saviour, " He is risen ; He is not 
here; come see the place where the Lord lay." And 
angels shall attend Him in His second advent to judge 
the world, for St. Matthew says, "When the Son of man 
shall come in His glory, and all His holy angels with 
Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory." 

All these angelic appearances are connected with the 
incarnation of Jesus Christ. The incarnation of Christ is 
the greatest moral epoch in the universe of God ; and as 
this incarnation was " for us men and our salvation," hence 
it would necessarily be a matter of profound interest to 
angelic beings, whose service was in the presence of God, 
to watch the results of that great mystery, and to rejoice, 
as each new convert to Christ gave proof of the power, and 
wisdom, and grace of God in planning out such a perfect 
and complete salvation. They rejoice that God's grace, 
and Christ's blood, and the Spirit's power, have not been 
bestowed in vain. They rejoice that another soul is 
" snatched as a brand from the burning," and has become 
" an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ to an inherit- 
ance" in heaven ; and though supremely happy themselves, 
though dwelling in the presence of God, " in whose pre- 



THE LOST SHEEP: THE LOST MONEY. 105 

sence is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are 
pleasures for ever more/' yet such is the depth of their 
interest in Christ, who is their Divine Head, such the out- 
going of their affection to Him in all His mediatorial work, 
that they find it a source of ecstatic joy to follow out the 
wondrous exhibitions of His redeeming love, as it flows 
down to the individual heart, and new creates the soul 
in righteousness and true holiness. "Warranted by the re- 
peated words of Jesus, we can imagine the angels — for- 
getful, as it were, for a time, of the "just who need no 
repentance," those who have already been renewed by the 
Holy Ghost — bending all the force and anxiety of their 
celestial interest upon one poor sinner, watching his wan- 
dering steps as he strays away further and further, now 
almost stumbling with fear, as his feet tread nearer and 
nearer to the slippery edge of ruin, and now all excitement, 
as, arrested by the call of mercy, he listens, turns, retraces 
his steps, is found by the Good Shepherd, is laid upon His 
shoulder ; and as the once lost one is brought back to the 
fold, we can conceive that there would rise from that 
heavenly host, from every rank and order, till the wave of 
their mighty gratulation would reach the Eternal Throne, 
the ecstatic exclamation, " He is found ! he is saved ! one 
sinner more redeemed ! one saint more for glory !" 



t Itrftipl § m 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 

"A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, 
Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them 
his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and 
took his journey into afar country, and there wasted his substance with riotous 
living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land ; and 
he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that coun- 
try , and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled 
his belly with the husks that the swine did eat : and no man gave unto him. And 
when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have 
bread enough, and to spare, and I perish with hunger ! I will arise and go to my 
father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before 
thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy hired 
servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great 
way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and 
kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, 
and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said 
to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him ; and put a ring on 
his hand, and shoes on his feet : and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it ; and 
let us eat, and be merry : for this my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was 
lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the 
field : and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. 
And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he 
said unto him, Thy brother is come ; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, 
because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not 
go in : therefore came his father out, and entreated him. And he answering, said 
to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any 
time thy commandment ; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make 
merry with my friends : but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured 
thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto 

109 



110 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that 
we should make merry, and be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and is alive 
again; and was lost, and is found." Luke xv. 11-32. 

THE parables of The Lost Sheep, The Lost Piece of Sil- 
ver, and The Prodigal Son, were spoken by our Lord 
on one occasion and for one general purpose. 

The occasion, as we have already seen, was the carping 
of the Scribes and Pharisees at the gracious reception which 
sinners received from Jesus ; and the general purpose was, 
to illustrate the seeking love and pardoning mercy of God 
toward the wandering, the lost, and the prodigal. 

Our Lord had already, to a great extent, vindicated his 
procedure in receiving sinners, by showing, through the 
two preceding parables, that it was natural that he should 
feel a deep interest in those who, having wandered, had 
now been reclaimed, having been lost, were now found. 
But many, probably, of his hearers were fathers, who, un- 
influenced, it may be, by similitudes drawn from pastoral 
or domestic life, might yet be deeply touched by an appeal 
to parental emotions, the natural outgushings of a heart 
for the sons of their affection. Nothing, then, could be 
more relevant, both to the audience which he addressed, 
and the truth which he wished to enforce, than the touch- 
ing incidents related in the parable of the Prodigal Son. 

We picture to ourselves the venerable father, blessed 
with an abundance of this world's goods, and happy in 
possessing two sons, to whom he looked for comfort in his 
advancing years. 

But discontent has already begun its work upon the 



THE PRODIGAL SON. ill 

younger son ; and, after long nursing his unhappy feelings, 
and long manifesting an increasing bitterness of spirit, he 
seizes upon some trifling excuse, and, in an exacting and 
unfeeling way, demands, " Father, give me the portion of 
goods that falleth to me." He wishes to get it into his 
own hands, to spend it as he pleases, without either pa- 
rental advice or control. 

Hitherto, the two sons had shared their father's house, 
table, bounty, love; but, on occasion of the peremptory 
demand of the younger, the father, in the words of the 
parable, "divided unto them his living." 

Waiting " not many days," only long enough to convert 
his " portion of goods" into ready money, he turned his 
back upon his father and his boyhood's home, and " took 
his journey into a far country ;" where no parental control 
would restrain him in his course of sin ; where, master of 
himself and of his means, he could do "whatsoever he 
listed." 

In this " far country," mingling with the dissolute and 
abandoned, he soon wastes " his substance in riotous living." 
Deserted by his parasitic friends, who attached themselves 
to him only so long as they could draw out the sap and 
strength of his pecuniary substance, he found himself "in 
want," with "a famine" pressing upon him, and not a 
friend to lean upon for even a temporary support. In this 
starving, desolate, ruined condition, he seeks, as a last re- 
sort, for some menial employment, by which he can at least 
satisfy his hunger, and secure a temporary home. He let 
himself out for hire to " a citizen of that country," and is 



112 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

sent by him "into his fields to feed swine" — the meanest 
of all employment, one abhorred by the Jews as unclean, 
and so contemned by the Egyptians, that swineherds were 
the only persons excluded from their temples. 

But the depth of his misery was not yet reached, for 
such were the cravings of hunger, and such the miserable 
portion of food allotted him, in this time of famine, that 
he would fain have eaten the husks or pods of the carob 
tree, used only as fodder for beasts, but " no man gave unto 
him." Wretched object ! stripped of his money, shrunken 
with hunger, turned out as a swineherd into the fields, a 
beggar and a stranger in a far-off land, with the glad 
remembrances of a former and happy life, making more 
vivid and sorrowful his present wretchedness; there he 
lay, the younger son of a liberal and bountiful father, 
loathsome, degraded, wretched : a melancholy picture of 
self-begotten misery and woe. 

How long he remained thus is not stated. The next 
intimation we have of him is, that " he came to himself," 
as if all this time he had not been himself, had been acting 
as a crazy man, and had now only just awoke from his 
demented condition, and looked at himself in a true light. 
He compares himself not with his former condition and 
circumstances, when, as a son, he sat at his father's table, 
and lodged in his father's mansion, and was waited on by 
his father's servants ; so low is he debased in his own eyes, 
that he does not raise himself to the height of this com- 
parison, which, on first thought, we might suppose would be 
the very one that would be uppermost in his mind ; but he 



THE PRODIGAL SON. WS 

himself humbly compares himself to his father's menials, 
and as his thoughts wander afar off from the swine and the 
husks around him, to his distant boyhood's home, they 
bring up before him the plenty which fills his father's house : 
the very " hired servants" of which have " bread enough 
and to spare," while he, the son, whom those full-fed 
servants once obeyed, now " perishes with hunger." The 
thought stings him to the quick, and he resolves, under the 
influence of the deep emotion, " I will arise, and go to my 
father ;" no longer will I sit down here in these distant 
fields, watching these loathsome beasts, but remembering 
the love and care of my father, and the plenty that fills 
his barns and board, to him I will go ; yet not as a son ; 
this relationship I have forfeited by my base desertion; 
but as a servant, and not as a servant only, but as a con- 
fessing, humbled penitent, for I will " say unto him, Father, 
I have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and am no 
more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of thy 
hired servants." 

His resolve was followed by action. He " came to his 
father ;" and we can almost picture out his appearance and 
feelings as he reaches his native fields, and comes within 
sight of his father's house. Wan and weary with his 
journey, faint with hunger, emaciated with long fasting and 
walking, his face furrowed by the ploughshare of care, and 
his brow corrugated by the turbulence of mental anguish, 
clad in the tattered and besmeared garments of a swine- 
herd, and leaning heavily upon his staff, he stands on the 
brow of the first hill from which he can catch a glimpse of 



L14 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

his once happy home, and as it meets his eyes they fill with 
tears, and his heart is too full for utterance. The terrible 
contrast between his present and his past condition ; the 
fearful wastings of life, health, strength, money, w r hich a 
few months have made ; the pictures of childish happiness 
enjoyed there, intermingling with the deep shadows which 
darkened his life in the land he had just left ; must have 
crowded thickly upon his mind, and made his weak frame 
tremble as these emotions wrestled within him. 

The father spies the returning prodigal even " when a 
great way off;" feels in his heart the wellings up of com- 
passion towards his son, and not waiting to see what was 
the temper and condition of that son, he " runs to meet 
him," "falls upon his neck" with joy, and " kisses him" with 
parental affection. The son, overpowered by this display, 
begins his premeditated speech ; " Father, I have sinned 
against Heaven in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be 
called thy son." The father stopped to hear no more ; the 
sentence, " Make me as one of thy hired servants," was 
arrested on his lips by the father's orders to the servants, 
" Bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put a 
ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet ; and bring hither 
the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry : for 
this my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and 
is found." Thus by these four signs, the freeman's robe, 
the patrician's ring, the sandals of honour, and the feast of 
gladness, did the father manifest the highest regard for his 
son, and confer on him the highest honours of his house. 

What a contrast between the morning and evening of 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 115 

that day ! The morning swineherd, the way-worn beggar, 
the hunger-pinched prodigal, is now, at eventide, the robed 
and ringed and sandalled son, the restored wanderer, the 
feasted guest, the joy of his father's heart and home. 

While thus merry, father and younger son together, " the 
elder son," who, when the meeting took place, " was in the 
field" superintending his labourers, " drew nigh to the house," 
and was astonished to hear sounds " of music and dancing ;" 
inquiring of "one of the servants" "what these things 
meant?" he was told the story of the prodigal's return. 
Instead, however, of rejoicing at the coming back of his 
erring brother, and going in and congratulating his father, 
and joining in the festive scene, he becomes " angry, and 
would not go in." The kind father, hearing of his feelings, 
goes out to him, and aims to soften down his wrath ; but 
the surly brother rebuffs him by relating his long-continued 
goodness, and hints even at unrewarded services ; while his 
dissolute brother no sooner returns from disgrace and beg- 
gary and crime, than there is " killed for him the fatted 
calf." The ill-natured attack of the elder brother, both 
upon his father and the prodigal, is met by the gentle yet 
forcible reply of the father, " Son, thou art ever with me, 
and all that I have is thine ; it was meet that we should 
make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and 
is alive again ; he was lost, and is found." 

Such is the exquisitely beautiful parable of the Prodigal 
Son, which Trench calls " the pearl and crown of all the 
parables of the Scripture ;" and of which Lavater says, 
" Had Christ only come to earth for the purpose of deliver- 



116 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

ing this parable, on that account alone should all mortal 
and immortal beings have concurred in bending the knee 
before Him." 

In considering the moral of this parable, we find that it 
resolves itself into four stages, viz., the prodigal's departure, 
his degradation, his return, and his reception. In each of 
these courses of action there is furnished a complete type 
of the human heart; and in the reception which the re- 
turning wanderer meets with, there is set out the free and 
pardoning love of a great and holy God. 

The prodigal began his departure by the exacting request, 
"Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me." The 
desire to throw off the reins of God's government and to 
be independent of Him, is the root sin of all sins. It was 
this which cast down the rebel angels ; which entrapped 
Adam into disobedience, and by which death was brought 
into the world and all our woe. As soon as the heart 
begins to be conscious of its relations and duties to God it 
grows restive, and commences its efforts at departure. The 
sinner selfishly craves " his portion of goods" from God, as 
if God was bound to divide unto him his living ; and where 
there is this perversity of mind, God often permits men to 
make the experiment which they desire. He gives them 
" their portion in this life ;" appears to bless them, and 
crown their lives with mercies : so far, however, from being 
satisfied, they collect the energies of mind and body, their 
influence and their resources, and having " gathered all 
together" with them, they commence their career of apos- 
tacy and crime. This career is a rapidly downward and an 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 117 

increasingly wicked one; for when the soul has once so 
compacted its energies as to cast off its filial duty to God 
and the checks of his Fatherly control, there is nothing to 
impede its onward course, for all the breaks of human 
resolves are powerless upon the rushing wheels of passion- 
driven man. The soul that has departed from God has 
commenced a series of sins which will ever augment in 
size, and increase in power, and deepen in guilt throughout 
eternity. 

This departure from God is a wilful one. It is not God the 
Father thrusting the son out of his house, and exiling him 
to a " far country," but the son voluntarily breaking away 
from the Father, and recklessly plunging into ruin, prefer- 
ring the " far country" to his father's house. That " far 
country" is this fallen world. We are here at a great 
moral distance from our Father's Home. We here waste 
the powers of mind and body in riotous living, in doing 
those things which God forbids and our consciences disap- 
prove, and the pangs of spiritual want soon seize upon us. 
For in this far off land there is a famine in all those things 
that the soul most needs ; and the world, so far from 
satisfying our spiritual cravings, like a hard master, sends 
us, immortal beings as we are, to the vilest of employments 
and the meanest of food. It is markedly emphatic of the 
debasing influence of the world, that our Lord should select 
such a loathsome and, by the Levitical law, almost accursed 
employment as a swineherd, as an illustration of the 
depths of misery to which it would reduce us, having first 
caused us to " waste our substance in riotous living." And 



118 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

as all those drudging occupations to which men bind out 
their souls for hire, are, in comparison to those employ- 
ments of holiness in which they should be engaged, as 
brutish as the swineherd's, so also is the food which the 
world offers to the starving spirit but husks — worthless, 
unsatisfying. The soul can never thrive upon such bestial 
diet, and it famishes for something real, true, holy ; some- 
thing suitable to its wants here and its destinies hereafter. 
As soon as the grace of God visits such a soul, it becomes 
at once conscious of its wants. There is a waking up to 
its needs, an opening of the eye to its miseries, a disen- 
chanting of the spell which has so long perverted the 
judgment; and the poor debased sinner begins to feel his 
wretchedness, his degradation, his perishing condition. 
The sin of his departure from God comes into clear view ; 
his guilt in his subsequent course stands out in its true 
light ; the woe of his present position darkens over him, 
like a lowering cloud charged with the arrowy lightnings 
of an angry God ; and the future lies before him, a yawning, 
bottomless gulf of woe, to the brink of which he feels that 
he is speedily hasting. This is the hour when the Holy 
Spirit begins his work of conviction, holding up the sins of 
his life in the light of God's countenance, and causing him to 
mourn with a godly sorrow that needeth not to be repented 
of. He shows him that he is " wretched, and miserable, 
and poor, and blind, and naked ;" and having convinced 
him of his undone condition, points him to his Father's 
house, stirs up within him a desire to return, and 
strengthens him to resolve, " I will arise and go to my 
Father." 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 119 

Not, however, until driven from every "refuge of lies," 
does the sinner desire to return. His proud heart rebels 
against going back to God, from whom he so vauntingly 
departed. The doctrine of free grace ill comports with his 
boasted self-righteousness and independence. If he could, 
by any works of penance, hew out for himself a salvation, 
so that the merit of it should be all his own, and of which 
he could say, " my power and the might of my hand hath 
gotten me this victory," he would gladly do it; and he 
makes a great variety of attempts to obtain peace of mind 
before he turns with a simple faith to "Behold the Lamb 
of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Then 
it is that the sinner "comes to himself;" up to this period 
he is beside himself." He calls good evil ? and bitter sweet ; 
his moral sense is perverted; his mind acts without due 
control; he yields himself as a servant to sin; he "loves 
darkness rather than light;" he runs greedily in the way 
of sin ; he seeks supremely his own selfish ends ; is under 
the governance of merely worldly influences ; shuts his 
eyes to the future, and madly rushes on to eternal ruin. 
Now, however, this delusion is being broken up : he begins 
to look at things in their just relation : reason recovers its 
ascendancy, and reflection busies itself with his past life. 
Now he thinks on God, his Father, and what he has left 
in his Father's house, and the rich provision there made for 
the souls of His servants, and the fulness of bread therein 
for all who will resort thither. He begins his repentance 
by a resolve to break off his present course of life — for 
there is no repentance where there is a continuance in sin 



120 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

— saying, " I will arise ;" I will sit no longer in these dis- 
tant fields, in this brutish servility. " I will arise," and 
renouncing my employment, will "go to my Father." 
And this indicates the second essential element of true 
repentance, which is a turning to God ; for when the Holy 
Ghost produces in the soul that godly sorrow for sin which 
is the result of his convicting power, then there results a 
repentance which manifests itself in a turning away from 
sin, and a turning unto God, with full purpose of heart to 
serve Him in sincerity and truth. 

The resolve to return is accompanied by a penitent con- 
fession, " Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before 
thee." Under the enlightening influences of the Spirit, 
the sinner is taught to behold his iniquities in a new point 
of view. Hitherto he has regarded sin only as it has 
affected his worldly interests and standing. Its heinous- 
ness has been measured by the discomforts of mind or 
body to which it has subjected him ; now, however, the 
mere earthly aspect of sin is overtopped by its appearance 
in the light of God's countenance. He sees it to be that 
abominable thing which God hateth ; and as the holy cha- 
racter of God rises into view, he beholds more clearly the 
baseness of his iniquity ; and so filled is he with a sense 
of his vileness in God's sight, that he exclaims with David, 
"Against thee only have I sinned." The idea that he 
" has sinned against heaven," against the laws, the love, 
the mercy, the long-suffering, the holiness of the God of 
Heaven, is the absorbing idea of the repenting sinner. He 
never thought before of sin as it appears in the view of 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 121 

God, and of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost; and he is 
amazed at its grossness and baseness, and exclaims, " Be- 
hold, I am vile ;" " I abhor myself, and repent in dust and 

ashes." 

For humility necessarily follows true repentance and 
confession. It is impossible for the soul to say, " Father, I 
have sinned against Heaven," without that conscious worth 
lessness on account of guilt so humbling the soul as also to 
call out the further exclamation, " I am no more worthy, to 
be called thy son ; make me as one of thy hired servants." 
To occupy the lowest place in the Church militant or 
Church triumphant is far too good for the now abased 
penitent. To be a " doorkeeper," " a hired servant," is all 
to which the prostrate, sin-stricken soul dares aspire ; and 
he feels that, to be "least in the kingdom of God" is higher 
honour than to be the greatest in the kingdoms of men. 
And well may the soul be humble when it contemplates 
the number, malignity, and constancy of its sins of thought 
and word and deed, secret and open, of omission and com- 
mission, on the one hand; and the character of God — holy, 
supreme, eternal, infinite — against whom it has sinned, on 
the other. In the presence of such mountain-like sins, and 
before such an ineffably glorious God, what position can 
the penitent take, but that of deepest humility and abase- 
ment; putting his hand upon his mouth, and his mouth 
in the dust, crying, " unclean, unclean," " God be merciful 
to me a sinner." 

From the depths of penitent humility, rises the most 
vigorous Christian action. He will love Christ the most, 



122 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

who has seen most of the plague of his own heart, and 
been made to feel most keenly the bitings of the " famine," 
and the worthlessness of the " husks" in that " far country'' 
of sin, wherein he was in bondage ; and he will work foi 
Christ the most energetically who loves most ardently, for 
there is no motive power to action so strong, so enduring, 
so elevating as the constraining love of Christ. Hence the 
prompt carrying into effect of the resolve, " I will arise and 
go to my Father." He arises, departs, leaves all behind 
him, and bends his eager steps towards his Father's house. 
He does not allow any doubts as to his Father's readiness 
to receive him to disturb his mind ; he does not stop to 
make himself more respectable, more externally worthy ; 
he does not hesitate and say, "If my Father wants me or 
loves me, it is easy enough for him to send out his hired 
servants and find me, and bring me home. In the confi- 
dence of a faith in his Father's readiness to receive and 
willingness to forgive, which is based on the immutable 
promise of God, he goes to that Father; for, over the gate- 
way that leads to His mercy-seat is inscribed in bold letters, 
" Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." 

As soon as there is this putting forth of the hand of faith, 
and laying hold on Christ as the hope set before us in the 
Gospel, there is a sensible appreciation of the fact that our 
Father, while we " were yet a great way off," has seen us, 
has had compassion on us, has come out to meet us, and 
has, with more than oriental manifestations of His love, 
taken us to His bosom and led us to His earthly courts. 
Beautifully as the touches of this exquisite parable illus- 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 123 

trate the tenderness of an earthly parent, they come far 
short of expressing the infinite, the divine, the eternal love 
of God for us miserable sinners, or the wonderful displays 
of His compassion when He gave His well-beloved and 
only-begotten Son "to die — the just for the unjust — that 
we might be reconciled to God." Oh, impenitent man! 
only obey the motions of the Holy Ghost, and leave your 
swine-like lusts, your worldly husks, your servitude to sin, 
and arise and go to your Father ; you will soon see that 
Father hasting towards you ; His Divine love moving Him 
to truest compassion, and causing Him to meet you while 
"yet a great way off;" for the language of this loving 
Father is, as Hosea tells us, " How shall I give thee up, 
Ephraim ? How shall I deliver thee, Israel ? How shall 
I make thee as Admah ? How shall I set thee as Zeboim ? 
Mine heart is turned within me ; my repen tings are kin- 
dled together." 

The rich provision which God makes for the repenting 
sinner illustrates still further his abounding love. The 
prodigal comes in the rags of his degradation, aud is, by the 
ministering hand of faith, clothed in the robe, " the best 
robe," of Christ's perfect righteousness, so that he exclaims 
with Isaiah, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul 
shall be joyful in my God ; for He hath clothed me with 
the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the 
robe of righteousness." 

The hand which squandered his Father's gifts, and doled 
out husks to the swine, is now adorned with a ring, the 
covenant ring of a new and everlasting alliance, the " token 
and pledge" of a union which the Lord will bless. 



124 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

He comes, with feet lacerated and wearied with the 
roughness and greatness of the sinner's way, and receives 
the shoes of the " preparation of the Gospel of peace," by 
which he is enabled to tread with confidence in the path 
of duty, and run with fleetness in the way of God's com- 
mandments. He comes, hungry and famished, and God 
spreads for him in His house the Gospel feast, " a feast of 
fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of 
marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." And this 
eucharistic feast, at which the truly penitent and believing 
soul feeds by faith on the body and blood of Calvary's 
Sacrifice, and is nourished and strengthened thereby, is but 
the antepast of that more glorious reunion when, with 
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, "he shall sit down to the 
marriage-supper of the Lamb in Heaven." 

He comes in sorrow and humility, feeling that he is 
unworthy to be called a son, and desiring to take a low 
place, even as " a hired servant," and he is received with 
every demonstration of joy ; the church on earth rejoices, 
and welcomes him with music and thanksgiving ; Christ 
rejoices, for He then sees of the travail of his soul, and is 
satisfied; and "there is joy in the presence of the angels 
of God," for this their earthly " brother was dead, and is 
alive again ; was lost, and is found." 



% Juj^i ifefoarK 



THE UNJUST STEWAED. 

"And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a 
steward ; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And 
he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee ? give an 
account of thy stewardship ; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the 
steward said within himself, What shall I do ? for my lord taketh away from me the 
stewardship : I cannot dig ; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, 
when 1 am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So 
he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How 
much owest thou unto my lord ? And he said, A hundred measures of oil. And 
he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said 
he to another, And how much owest thou ? And he said, A hundred measures of 
wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the lord 
commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely : for the children of 
this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto 
you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness ; that, when 
ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." Luke xvi. 1-9. 



COMMENTATOKS, while they have done much to 
explain the parables, have also done much to obscure 
them. They have sometimes created more obstacles than 
they have removed, and, by their multifarious explanations 
and hypercritical emendations, have involved passages in 
perplexity, which before were clear and simple. 

It is the duty of the biblical scholar to study when to 
let the subject plead its own cause, and when to play the 

127 



128 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED.. 

able advocate for its rendering or its doctrine, but never to 
overlay the words of God with human explanations, how- 
ever ornate or beautiful. The Apollo of Praxiteles needs 
no cloak of gold from the hand of Demetrius. 

These remarks apply with some force to the parable 
under consideration, which some of the ancient fathers 
looked upon as the most difficult and obscure of all ; and 
one learned divine (Cajetan) has gone so far as to declare 
that it is not only difficult but impossible to give its true 
meaning. 

The error under which most of the expositors of this 
passage have laboured has been that of attempting to fit 
an interpretation to every circumstance and incident of the 
parable, instead of attempting to seize upon and elucidate 
its main scope and design. "A. parable, and the moral 
accommodation of it, are not," as one well observes, " like 
two planes, which touch one another in every part, but like 
a globe upon a plane, which only touches in one point." 

Though this may not be true of all the parables, it is 
certainly very near the truth as it respects this, for. the one 
point of contact here between the parable and the moral 
accommodation of it to men, is the w r ord " wisely :" the 
incident in the first part of the parable being designed to 
show that the steward acted " wisely," or with temporal 
prudence and foresight, in making provision for the future ; 
and the latter part of it, or application, being intended to 
urge upon us in reference to our soul's future, a spiritual 
wisdom, corresponding in its prudence and foresight to this 
wise acting in the things of earth. 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 129 

"Wisely," then, seems to be the key word of the parable, 
opening before us " the two-leaved gates" of the similitude 
and the application. Let us examine the similitude or 
parable first, and then the moral or application. In apply- 
ing the term " wisely" (or " prudently," as Wiclif more 
properly renders xhe original) to the unjust steward, it 
signifies merely temporal wisdom, sagacity, discernment, 
foresight to perceive danger, and wit to provide for it, 
according to the best classical usage of the word as found 
in the writings of Aristotle, Xenophon, Plato, and 
Euripides. In this strictly worldly sense the unjust stew- 
ard acted " wisely," in making full provision for the future. 

When accusation was made against him that he had 
u wasted" his master's goods, and he was called upon to 
answer to the charge by giving an account of his steward- 
ship, he was at a loss how to proceed, and asks the anxious 
question, " What shall I do ?" The charges against him he 
knew to be true; dismissal from office must inevitably 
follow an examination of his rent-rolls and accounts ; how 
therefore to acquire a livelihood when discharged from his 
present lucrative station, perplexed his mind. Unaccus- 
tomed to labour, he could not work ; puffed up with pride, 
he could not beg ; and between his inability to do the one 
and his unwillingness to do the other, he had but a poor 
prospect for the future. 

He soon settles the matter by adding iniquity to iniquity, 
and completing a long course of dishonesty by open fraud. 
He makes his resolve, comforts himself with the assur- 



130 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

ance that it will secure him a home, and then proceeds to 
carry his plan into operation. 

He immediately summons his lord's debtors or tenants, 
looks over the various amounts which they had obligated 
themselves to pay for their lands or dwellings, rentals 
which, to this day, in Eastern countries, are mostly paid in 
the produce of the land, as corn, oil, wheat, wine. Finding 
that the first to whom he spoke was bound for " a hundred 
measures," or about a thousand gallons of olive oil (a valu- 
able article of oriental commerce), he tells him to take his 
" bill" or lease, erase the hundred, and " sit down quickly 
and write fifty," thus, cancelling at a stroke one-half his 
debt. 

He then calls a second, and learning from his answer 
that he was to pay " an hundred measures of wheat," or 
over 1400 bushels, he directed him to strike off one-fifth, 
and thus make his obligation but "fourscore." Two, only, 
are mentioned, but the tenor of the narrative implies that 
there were other debtors, and that the like reduction was 
made in all their contracts; and this the steward could 
easily do, because he was the one through whom the estates 
were rented, the one to whom the revenue was paid ; and 
as these " bills" or obligations were in the handwriting of 
the renters, countersigned and witnessed by the steward, 
hence, it was very easy so to collude with the debtors as 
to produce the changes in the lease of each which are spe- 
cified in the parable. The result of this was, that he 
placed each under an obligation to himself, varying, pro- 
bably, with the ability of each to meet that obligation, and 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 131 

thus made sure of a welcome among these " debtors" when 
his lord should discharge him from his stewardship. 

He reasoned upon the general law of reciprocity, and, 
though he was faithless to his master, he believed these 
obliged debtors would be faithful to him. 

For this act of worldly wisdom the lord (not Jesus) or 
master of the steward was forced to commend him, for, 
though he saw the crime, he could not but praise the fore- 
sight and sagacity by which he secured to himself both 
friends and home. 

Much unnecessary obloquy has been thrown upon our 
blessed Lord, by attributing the commendation of the 
unjust steward to Him, rather than to the master or lord 
of the steward. From the time of the emperor Julian, 
who made this an occasion of vilifying the character of 
Christ, down to the neological interpreters of the present 
day, it has been made an instrument, either of attacking 
the character of Christ, or of giving Divine support to 
knavery and fraud ; and though some excellent commen- 
tators, as Henry and Whitby, favour the idea that the 
commendation proceeded from Jesus, yet the peculiar con- 
struction of the original Greek words, as well as the pro- 
priety of the thing itself, renders it certain that the " lord" 
indicated was the steward's master, and not Jesus Christ. 
It was, then, the same "lord" mentioned in the third 
verse, "for my lord taketh away my stewardship;" and 
the same " lord" mentioned in the fifth verse, " How much 
owest thou unto my Lord ?" who, in the eighth verse, " com- 
mended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely." 



132 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

At this word 'wisely/ the parable proper ends. And 
now, with a sort of parenthetical remark, that " the chil- 
dren of this world are in their generation wiser than the 
children of light/' Christ enforces the true moral of the 
parable in the emphatic words, "And I say unto you, 
make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteous- 
ness, that when ye fail they may receive you into ever- 
lasting habitations." In which application to His disciples, 
" yourselves" answers to the " steward" of the parable ; the 
" friends" to the " Lord's debtors /' " when ye fail," to the 
removal of the steward from his office ; and " the reception 
into everlasting habitations" is antithetical of the tempo- 
rary lodgings into which the steward was received by his 
earthly friends ? when "put out of the stewardship/' and 
all turns upon the word " wisely," which is the hinge of 
the parable. 

This we learn from looking into the parable itself. Why 
was it uttered ? To teach us to waste goods intrusted to 
us ? to teach us to cheat and defraud our employers ? 
to show us how to make our fellow-men accomplices in 
our crimes ? to commend injustice ? Certainly not. So 
that we are shut up to the word wisely as the true pith of 
the parable, or else must discard it as teaching nothing 
worthy to be learned. 

What, then, in reference to the wise actings of this stew- 
ard, would our Lord have us imitate ? What are the real 
lessons which this parable was designed to teach ? That 
we should use our riches with a wise reference to our soul's 
future existence, and, regarding them as treasures given us 
in trust, and ourselves as stewards, amenable to our Divine 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 133 

Lord, so spend this " mammon of unrighteousness" in the 
cause of God, the extension of the Church, and the relief 
of human misery, as that we do by a figure of speech 
" make friends" thereby ; " friends" who, when we " fail," or 
" die," shall, as it were, receive us " into everlasting habi- 
tations." " We shall find friends there," says Luther, " for 
the good deeds we have done, the kindness and beneficence 
we have shown to the poor ; these shall not only be wit- 
nesses of our brotherly and Christian behaviour, but shall 
also be commended and recompensed. Then one shall 
come and say, 4 Lord, here is a person who gave me a coat, 
a little money, a piece of bread, a cup of water in the time 
of need.' Yea, as Christ tells us in the 25th chapter of 
Matthew, He, Himself, shall come forth and testify before 
His Heavenly Father, angels, and saints what we have 
done for Him, and how we have thereby approved our 
faith." Luther also adds this important remark — "it is 
not works which gain heaven for us, but Christ freely 
grants eternal life to those who believe, and give evidence 
of their faith in works of love and the right employment 
of their earthly goods." 

Eiches, termed here " the mammon of unrighteousness," 
or the false, fleeting, uncertain riches of earth, in the 
abstract have neither moral good nor evil. They are, so 
long as unused, passive and innocuous : it is riches in 
motion which gives them a definite character; and here 
they move under two laws, and in two directions, the law 
of selfishness and the law of love : the direction towards 
God, and whatever tends to advance His glory, and the 



184 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

direction towards earth, and whatever abets its lusts and 
pleasures. 

As, then, we cannot live in the world without making 
use of mammon after some sort, so must we use it as to 
make friends by it, not consuming it upon our lusts, 
not squandering it in frivolous schemes and pursuits, 
not hoarding it up for family aggrandisement; for then 
it truly becomes unrighteous mammon, one of the most 
powerful instruments of vice and wickedness ; then truly, 
as the heathen poet writes, is "gold more destructive than 
the sword ;" and becomes, as an Apostle declares, " the root 
of all evil." But we must appropriate it to works of 
mercy, feeding the hungry, relieving {he poor, assisting the 
afflicted, ministering to the heirs of salvation, extending 
the gospel of Christ ; thus putting it out to interest in God's 
service, so that in the end we shall receive unfading riches 
for filthy lucre, with the usury of grace here and glory in 
heaven. 

This is the way to "provide ourselves bags which wax 
not old;" "a treasure in the heavens that faileth not," 
where no thief steals, no moth frets, no rust corrodes. 
Into these habitations all will be received when discharged 
from earth, who have that faith which, working by love, 
brings forth the fruits of righteousness and true holiness. 
The steward was received into the wooden tenements or 
clay-built cottages of his lord's debtors, and by earthly and 
mortal friends. The friends have long since departed, the 
dwellings have long since crumbled away ; but " the friends" 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 135 

which the right users of mammon make, are in heaven, 
and the "habitations" into. which they will welcome us 
are " everlasting ;•" for the inheritance of the Christian is 
"incorruptible, undefiled, and passeth not away." 

Let us imitate then the foresight of the unjust steward 
in making provision for the future, by acting wisely for the 
eternal interests of our souls ; let us imitate the alacrity 
and promptness of the unjust steward, who lost not a 
moment in view of his speedy discharge to secure friends 
and homes, by being as prompt and eager in the prospect 
of our failing life to gain the favour of Him who is " a 
friend, that sticketh closer than a brother," and a mansion 
among the " everlasting habitations ;" " for we know," says 
St. Paul, " that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens." And finally, let us 
remember, that it behoves " the children of light" to be as 
wise, as cautious, as circumspect, as far-seeing, as prompt 
in devising, and as liberal in executing every good plan for 
the salvation of souls, and the glory of God, as " the chil- 
dren of this world are in their generation." 

Yet how seldom is this the case ! How very far 
the spirit of Christian enterprise falls below the level of 
worldly enterprise ! We need then, as " children of light," 
to go to the " Father of lights" for that illumination which 
will enable us to act with more judgment, tact, zeal, and 
forecast in our spiritual concerns, beseeching Him that He 
would strengthen us " with the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, 



136 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

and daily increase in us thy manifold gifts of grace, the 
spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel 
and ghostly strength, the spirit of knowledge and true god- 
liness, and fill us, Lord, with the spirit of thy holy fear, 
now and for ever." 




V 











^OV- -■ 






ffifrf (Mr gamantau. 



THE GOOD SAMAKITAN. 

"A CEiu*Lk» flidE went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, 
which stripped him oi Ms raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him 
half dead. And b} c^aaco there came down a certain priest that way ; and when 
he saw him, he passed by en the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he 
was at the place, came aTid looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But 
a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was : and when he saw him, 
he had compassion on him, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring 
in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and 
took care of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, 
and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him : and whatsoever 
thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these 
three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves ? And 
he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do 
thou likewise." Luke x. 30-37- 

THE law of benevolence never received a more beautiful 
illustration than in the parable of the Good Samaritan. 
The tact with which it was introduced, and the judicious 
selection of its circumstances, are only equalled by the 
felicity of its similitude and the force of its appeal. 

For the purpose of putting to the proof Christ's know- 
ledge and wisdom, a lawyer, on one occasion, asked Him 
the momentous question — " Master, wliat shall I do to in- 
herit eternal life?" As one conversant with the law, our 
Lord referred him back to the law, and asked him what 

139 



140 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

that said upon the subject. He immediately returned the 
prompt reply, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, 
and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbour as thyself." 
Jesus replied, " Thou hast answered right ; this do, and 
thou shalt live." But the lawyer was not prepared to fulfil 
the broad provisions of this law, and hence, in order to 
justify any remissness, or to excuse the performance of his 
duty under the plea of ignorance, he says to Jesus, "And 
who is my neighbour?" for the Pharisees, to which sect 
the lawyers mostly belonged, acknowledged none as neigh- 
bours but those of their own faith and nation. 

Instead of giving a categorical reply, our Lord brings 
before him the case of a man, who, on his journey from 
Jerusalem to Jericho, about fifteen miles to the south-west, 
on the river Jordan, fell among the thieves which infested 
the lurking places of that wilderness road. These bandits 
not merely robbed the traveller of his money, but " stripped 
him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving 
him half dead." 

While thus lying weltering in his blood, "there came 
down a certain priest that way," for thousands of priests 
and Levites dwelt at Jericho, and passed to and fro as they 
went up to Jerusalem to minister before the Lord, or re- 
turned from the Temple, having finished their course of 
service. 

This priest saw the wounded man, but, instead of paus- 
ing to alleviate his suffering, and thus fulfilling, only in a 
higher degree, the Levitical law which declared, " Thou 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 141 

shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the 
way, and hide thyself from them; thou shalt surely help 
him to lift them up again ;" " he passed by on the other 
side." 

Soon a Levite came to the place, and, moved by a curi- 
osity that had in it no element of compassion, " came and 
looked on him •" saw his helpless state ; and yet, unmoved 
by the sight, he also "passed by on the other side." 

But that which the wounded man's own countrymen 
refused to do, the nation's enemy, a Samaritan, did ; for " a 
certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was ; 
and when he saw him, he had compassion." 

This compassion was no mere barren emotion, but active 
and practical. He went to him where he lay in his blood ; 
he washed his bruises with wine, the styptic qualities of 
which were well known; and allayed the pain of the 
wounds with the soothing oil of Samaria ; carefully binding 
up his wounds, and preparing him for removal from his 
painful position. Nor did his compassion end here. He 
set the miserable man " on his own beast ;" and, walking 
by his side to support him in his seat and to guide the ass, 
he " brought him to an inn," and there tarried with him 
all night, ministering those attentions which the traveller 
so much needed, over and above those which he had re- 
ceived at the wayside. 

On the morrow, before he left to go on his journey, he 
paid the host of the inn in advance, for the care of the sick 
man, — giving him two denarii, or twenty-eight cents of our 
money : a sum quite insufficient, according to modern 



142 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

expenditures, but at that time equal to the full pay of a 
labourer for two days, and therefore ample for the wa,nts of 
the sick man until the Samaritan could return again. 
Having committed him to the care of the innkeeper, with 
the promise, " whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come 
again, I will repay thee," the compassionate Samaritan 
departed. 

Spreading out this scene before the eyes of the lawyer, 
our Lord puts to him the question, " Which now of these 
three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among 
thieves ?" The lawyer replied, " He that showed mercy on 
him ;" a correct judgment, and one which settled at once 
the great principle of moral relationship between man and 
man. 

It was not possible for our Lord to take stronger antago- 
nistic elements whereby to illustrate the fusing power of 
neighbourly affection, than the Jew and the Samaritan. 
There existed between the two people a national hatred of 
the most implacable kind. The Samaritans had built on 
Mount Gerizim a temple, in opposition to the' one at Jeru- 
salem ; they had established a priesthood in rivalry of the 
Aaronic order ; they rejected all of the Sacred Scriptures 
but the five books of Moses ; they paid no heed to the tra- 
dition of the elders, which the Jews so tenaciously held; 
and though, according to the glosses of the Pharisees, the 
Jews might buy of the Samaritans, they were not to bor- 
row anything of them, were not to receive them into their 
houses, were not to accept from them any kindness, and 
were bound under an anathema not to eat or drink with 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 143 

them. Thus, as the woman of Sychar truly said to Jesus 
as he sat at Jacob's well, " the Jews have no dealings with 
the Samaritans :" and thus also, when the enemies of our 
Lord wished to stigmatize Him with the most contemptuous 
epithet, they termed him "a Samaritan that had a devil." 

When, therefore, Jesus selected, as the representative of 
that love which he would inculcate, the deeds of a despised 
Samaritan, and when he compelled Jewish lips to utter 
praises to the compassion and kindness of this " alien and 
stranger to the commonwealth of Israel," he gave expression 
in the most forcible form possible, to the broad, binding, 
universal nature of that second table of the Law, which 
Himself had summed up in the command, " Thou shalt 
love thy neighbour as thyself." 

Those who, like Origen in the early ages of the Church, 
search for a hidden and mysterious sense under the plain 
and literal text, interpret this parable in reference to the 
fall and recovery of man. Such is the explanation made 
by Luther and Melancthon, in former days ; by the Baptist 
commentator Gill, by the learned Jones of Nayland, and 
by the recent w T ork of Trench, to say nothing of minor 
and uninfluential authorities. These writers differ about 
many of the details of the parable, but their general view? 
may be thus expressed : The " certain man" is " Adam as 
he is the head and representative of his race ;" the going 
" down from Jerusalem to Jericho" is emblematical of his 
going out from Paradise into a world of thorns and briars ; 
his falling " among thieves" indicates the malignant powers 
of hell, who assail the sinner and rob him of his heavenly 



144 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

birthright; his being stripped "of his raiment," marks 
his despoliation of the robe of original innocence ; his 
" wounded" state shows the work of sin upon man, which 
makes him, " from the crown of his head to the sole of his 
foot, to be full of wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores, 
which have neither been healed, neither bound up, neither 
mollified with ointment ;" their " leaving him half dead" 
exemplifies the fact that Adam did not die in body the day 
in which he sinned, but that having pronounced against 
him the sentence of death, he may in truth have been 
declared " half dead." By the Priest and Levite is meant 
the Patriarchal (as in that age each head of the family 
was priest in his own house) and the Levitical dispensa- 
tion, which, of themselves, could do nothing to recover lost 
man, "for it was not possible that the blood of bulls and 
of goats should take away sin." " But what the law could 
not do, in that it was weak through the flesh," was at length 
effected by Him whom the Jews called " a Samaritan," even 
Jesus Christ. The journey which He took was that of His 
incarnation, by which He "travelled in the greatness of 
His strength" from heaven to earth, and coming in the 
capacity of a Great Physician, He had oil and wine ; the 
wine of His own cleansing and purifying blood, and the oil 
of His own anointing grace, which healeth all our infirmities. 
He is said to set him on His own beast, because of man's 
own inability to move of himself in the direction of his 
salvation; His being brought to an inn represents his 
admission to the visible Church ; the ministry is " the 
host ;" the Old and New Testaments " are the two pence" 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 145 

which this "Host" is to expound and administer as being: 
steward of the manifold grace of God. 

Such is the drift of these ingenious interpretations. 
They are very prettily wrought up, and, to some extent, 
perhaps, profitable; but such fancies will not admit of a 
close scrutiny, and lead us away from the real intent of 
our Lord when he spoke the parable. There may very 
often be parallels and coincidences between these beautiful 
similitudes and certain other truths of Scripture history, 
or doctrines of revelation, but these must not lead us 
astray from the plain design of the parable, which, in 
nearly every instance, can be ascertained by carefully 
studying its context and its bearing. 

The plain import of this parable seems to be to teach us 
the necessity of actively obeying the second great com- 
mand, ■" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," as an 
essential prerequisite to inheriting eternal life. 

It urges us to this duty, first, by showing that benevo- 
lence is not to be circumscribed by national boundaries, 
Because the ancient Jews were prohibited from being 
familiar with idolatrous nations, and were enjoined to 
maintain a perpetual enmity with Amalek and the seven 
nations of Canaan, whom God had cast out before them 
and devoted to ruin, they came to regard themselves 
as warranted to hate all of mankind but their own 
nation, and did, in a great degree, confine their love and 
regard to their own kindred and people. As the Jews 
were, in an especial manner, the chosen people of the 
one living and true God, so were they particularly re- 
quired to hate the ways and uproot the idolatries of the 
10 



146 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

Oanaanitish nations, who were ever striving to seduce them 
from the worship of Jehovah. 

On this point, the Divine injunctions were rigorous and 
inflexible ; and properly so, because, as familiarity with sin 
lessens the hatred of it, and intercourse with transgressors 
insensibly begets a following in their steps ; hence, God 
would break off all intercourse with such wicked nations, 
that He might preserve ■" unto himself a peculiar people, 
zealous of good works." Yet at the same time, the laws 
which God enjoined upon the Jews, in respect to strangers 
who happened in their land as travellers, or who came to 
sojourn there, were of the most lenient and tenderly pro- 
tective kind. " Thou shalt not oppress the stranger ; for 
ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers 
in the land of Egypt." 

The time, however, had now arrived for breaking down 
this national seclusion. The purpose of God, in fencing 
off the Jews from other nations, and constituting them 
emphatically a theocracy, had been accomplished. The 
Messiah had come. The Christian dispensation was open- 
ing up to view, and that dispensation was not designed for 
one nation or people only, but for the whole world. Chris- 
tianity knows no geographical boundaries, no treaty limits, 
no barriers of language, customs, climes, pursuits; it recog- 
nises no distinctions of sex, of colour, of estate, of educa- 
tion ; it represents us all as of one blood, the offspring of a 
common Father, for whom is provided a common Redeemer, 
and before whom lies a common death, a common judg- 
ment, a common eternity. To meet this wonderful enlarge- 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 147 

merit of God's scheme of grace, which lay folded up in the 
Jewish theocracy, as the germ in the seed corn, there was 
required a new promulging and a more vigorous enforce- 
ment of the duties of the second table of the Divine law. 
That promulgation of the law our Saviour made when 
He summed up the decalogue in two commands, on which 
He told us hung "all the law and the prophets;" and that 
vigorous enforcement of this second great command, our 
Saviour made in the touching parable now before us. And 
what our Lord thus taught He practised. National bound- 
aries did not circumscribe his compassion. The Roman 
centurion, the Syro-Phcenician mother, the woman of 
Samaria, partook of His benevolence \ and herein He has 
left us an example not to permit our charities to be pent 
up within the narrow bounds of our own state or nation, 
but, overleaping these, to find in every child of Adam, no 
matter what his birth, his education, his position, his 
abode, a " neighbour," an object of regard, and, if need be, 
of compassion. The acknowledgment of the lawyer, that 
he who had " showed mercy" to the wounded man, had 
most proved himself a neighbour, even though he was a 
Samaritan ; and the solemn injunction, " Go and do thou 
likewise;" make it imperative on us to practise similar 
compassion to all our race, and like liberality of mind and 
heart and purse. 

The parable teaches us, secondly, not to circumscribe 
our benevolence by our religious sympathies. 

Those of the same "household of faith" may have more 
claims upon our kindness, but not to the exclusion of 



148 THE PARABLES UNIOLDED. 

others. The Apostle's injunction is, " Do good unto all 
men ;" and he adds, because of the nearer affinity into 
which religion draws us, " especially unto them that are 
of the household of faith." 

Nothing could exceed the bitterness of the religious 
enmity between the Jew and the Samaritan. With rival 
temples, rival priests, rival altars, rival sacrifices, rival 
kingdoms, each stigmatized the other as idolaters, and 
waged mutual persecutions with a deadliness of hatred 
peculiar to religious animosities. Yet in this parable, the 
wounded Jew, whom the Priest and Levite of his own 
nation heeded not in the hour of his extremity, was suc- 
coured and relieved by the hated Samaritan. He did not 
stop to calculate the force of his religious differences; he 
did not pause on his journey to taunt and revile this help- 
less Jew ; but, as soon as he saw his necessitous condition, 
" he had compassion on him." Eeligious differences, then, 
should have nothing to do with enlarged Christian benevo- 
lence. Sectarian charity is selfish charity, because based 
on motives of personal or denominational aggrandizement. 
Had the Samaritan thus reasoned, he never would have 
relieved the plundered Jew. Had Jesus thus thought, he 
never would have spoken this parable; for this rebukes 
that narrow spirit, and inculcates a broad philanthropy 
that disregards the fences and boundaries of sects and 
denominations, and that is willing to expend itself on 
every one that needs attention, because each sufferer 
whom our charities can reach is the "neighbour" whom 
we are bound to relieve. He who confines his benevolence 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 149 

within the limits of his religious creed, casts dishonour 
upon the God whom he pretends to worship, disregards 
the plain commands of the Bible, and manifests a narrow- 
ness of mind and illiberality of spirit, degrading to the 
Christian name. 

This parable teaches us, thirdly, not to limit our sympa- 
thy and benevolence by personal friendships. Between the 
Jew and the Samaritan there was no social intercourse. 
The Jew cursed the Samaritan publicly in the synagogue ; 
declared that he who received one into his house was 
laying up curses for his children ; would no more eat of 
their food than they w r ould taste swine's meat ; and this 
enmity, manifesting itself through all the minute inter- 
course of adjoining nations, was fully reciprocated by the 
Samaritan, who sought in every way to annoy and vex the 
Jew. But all this weighed not in the case before us. Nor 
should such personal considerations weigh with us. 

In his sermon on the mount, our Lord remarked, " Ye 
have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour and hate thine enemy ;" this was the moral code 
of the Pharisees and Scribes, in which God's law had been 
mutilated by human traditions; but Christ recovers His 
law from these Talmudical perversions, by the authoritative 
command, " But I say unto you, love your enemies ; bless 
them that curse you ; do good to them that hate you, and 
pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute 
you." This is the sublime morality of the Gospel, so con- 
trary to the spirit of the Jews ; and the reason w T hich 
Christ gives for its exercise is as sublime as the precept . 



150 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

" That ye may be the children of your Father which is in 
Heaven : for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and 
on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the 
unjust." Let your kindness be as limitless and as uncon- 
strained by personal feelings as God's, for it is a necessary 
qualification to our being the children of God, that we 
should love our enemies. The hate of men we must meet 
with love, their cursing with blessing, their despite with 
goodness, their persecution with prayer. The kindness 
and sympathy of Jesus were not restricted within the circle 
of his immediate friends : "He went about doing good" 
to all classes, in all places, at all times, under all cir- 
cumstances; yet often "had not where to lay his head;" 
often " was an hungered ;" often " wearied," and always " a 
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He went 
even to Samaria, and there opened living fountains in the 
hearts of those who heard and believed on Him, even 
though at first rebuffed and almost insulted. In the very 
hour of his betrayal and arrest in Gethsemane, He 
imparted healing mercy to one of that midnight band 
who had gone out to bind Him ; and on the cross He gave 
pardon and life eternal to the thief who, but a short time 
before, was reviling His holy name. 

The broad command, then, enforced by this parable, and 
corroborated by the other teaching of Jesus Christ, is, that 
we are to show kindness, mercy, charity, irrespective of 
nation, kindred, friendship, or creed. That each man has 
a claim upon his fellow man, both by the common law of 
humanity and the superadded law of God. 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 151 

In what an elevated position does this parable place the 
Christian dispensation ! How nobly it contrasts, on the 
one hand, with the spirit of the Jews, whose hatred of 
other nations called out the reproaches of Tacitus and 
Juvenal and Diodorus Siculus ; and, on the other, with 
the tenets of the best and wisest of the heathen philoso- 
phers, with whom revenge was a virtue, forgiveness of 
injuries a weakness, and love of enemies unknown. 

The sentiment of the heathen poet — " Homo sum, nihil 
humanum a me alienum puto" — has been justly applauded 
as one of the finest of human apothegms ; but it falls short, 
far short, of the Divine teaching of Jesus — " Love your 
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that 
hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and 
persecute you ;" for while the former maxim is founded 
on curiosity and selfishness, the latter is based on the 
manifestations of a Divine love, and its required imitation 
by those who would be called " the children of God." But 
this true spirit of love can be found only in hearts renewed 
by the Holy Ghost. It is not the product of natural ami- 
ability ; it does not result from the gushings of human 
sympathy; it is not evoked by tender education. It is 
only as we love Christ, that we can love all men in Christ, 
and for Christ. If we indeed love Him with all our heart 
we love everything which He loves ; and everything which 
engages His affection becomes magnified in importance and 
invested with new interest to us. When, therefore, we 
mark how deeply and self-sacrificingly He loves our race, 
how much affection and labour and care and blood He has 



152 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

expended on it ; surely we find the highest possible mo- 
tives for loving our fellow men. Love for them filled the 
Divine heart of Jesus ; love for them evoked the mightiest 
operations of the Holy Ghost ; love for them called forth 
the highest reach of the love of God the Father; and then 
are we most God-like when we imitate Him in manifesting 
a holy and sanctified affection towards our fellow men. 
Hence that strong assertion of St. John — " If a man say, 
I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he 
that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can 
he love God whom he hath not seen ?" 

This parable also furnishes a great missionary argument ; 
not by way of direct precept, but by induction. If the law 
of Christ's Gospel requires us to love our neighbour, to the 
extending to him of all needed succour for the supply of 
his physical necessities, surely it requires, with all the 
added force of the supereminent value of the soul over the 
body, that we should love the souls of our neighbours, and 
give them the spiritual succours which they need for salva- 
tion. And as the word " neighbour" has been so broadened 
as to comprehend all mankind, irrespective of creed, colour, 
country ; so must our love, if we would have it co-exten- 
sive with Gospel requirements, go out world-wide ; so must 
it busy itself about the millions of our race who are now 
lying " half dead" in trespasses and sins ; so must we, like 
the Samaritan, give to them those means of grace, and 
those aids in securing eternal life, which God has put in 
our power ; so should we seek to bring them to the " Inn," 
the Church, and thus show forth our love to Christ, by 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 153 

evincing tenderest love for those for whom Christ died, but 
who are yet unblessed with Gospel light, and uninvited by 
the offers of salvation. He is not a true lover of his race 
who draws back or refuses to come up to the missionary 
work ; for, as mankind can only be made holy, and conse- 
quently happy, through the applied blood of the cross, as 
this blood of cleansing can only be applied through faith 
in the Lord Jesus, and as he can be believed on only as he 
is preached to the nations, so a true philanthropy, that 
which strikes down to the root of things, is that which 
would exert itself to send out living preachers or spirit- 
speaking Bibles into all the corners of the earth, until all 
should know the Lord, from the rising to the setting sun. 
Christ's heart was a missionary heart, and every one who 
has Christ formed within him the hope of glory, has a 
missionary heart also. 

In conclusion, though we do not believe in the fanciful 
interpretation of this parable, to which we have alluded, 
we may at least use it as illustrative of the exceeding love 
of our Lord Jesus for us miserable sinners. If we admire 
the conduct of the Samaritan, infinitely more must we 
admire the love of Christ. He beheld us robbed of the 
image of God, wounded by sin, lying helpless in our fallen 
humanity, and when we were so dead in iniquity that we 
could not help ourselves ; when the Patriarchal dispensation 
stalked by on the other side, and deigned no help , when 
the Levitical dispensation came and looked on us through 
its shadowy ceremonies, and then, leaving us in our blood, 
passed by also on the other side ; then Christ came, and 



154 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

though we were His enemies, He pitied us, bound up, by 
the oil and wine of Divine grace, our ghastly wounds; 
Himself bare our infirmities, took the whole charge of our 
cure, and healed us, not like the Samaritan, by giving 
money from His scrip, but blood from His heart, riven by 
the soldier's spear ; blood from His head, drawn out by His 
acanthine crown ; blood from His hands and feet, started 
by the spikes of the accursed tree ; and by this precious 
bloodshedding He obtained for us relief from our enemies, 
spiritual health here, and life eternal beyond the grave. 



%\t Ijjanm aiflr \\t JuMiratt 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 

" Two men went up into the temple to pray ; the one a Pharisee, and the other 
a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank 
thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as 
this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And 
the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, 
but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, 
this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one 
that exalteth himself shall be abased ; and he that humbleth himself shall be 
exalted. Luke xviii. 10-14. 

THE two characters introduced into this parable were 
well known as types of the two extremes of Jewish 
society ; and the contrast is the more striking, because 
of the preference given to the humble Publican over the 
haughty Pharisee. 

A brief examination of the characteristics of the two 
classes will enable us to obtain clearer ideas of the persons 
brought to our notice, and of the truth which this parable 
was intended to convey. The Pharisee, as he thrusts 
himself more prominently forward, will first claim our 
attention. 

The great body of the Jewish people were divided into 
three sects : the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes ; 
corresponding somewhat to the three schools of Grecian 

157 



158 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

philosophy: the Pythagoreans, the Epicureans, and the 
Stoics. " Unlike the philosophy of the Greeks, however, 
which had scarcely anything but a human ground on which 
to stand and labour, the Jewish sects made a Divine reve- 
lation the object of their philosophical research, and so 
were saved from the grosser errors and absurd wanderings 
into which the Greek schools were led, while in pursuit of 
the airy visions of their own heated brain." 

Until the Babylonish captivity, the Jews, as a body, 
were united in opinion; but after their dispersion, they 
imbibed many erroneous dogmas, and, grafting the frag- 
ments of a Greco-Oriental philosophy upon the long- 
accumulating traditions of the elders, they sought by these 
to interpret the Holy Scripture ; and thus, for more than a 
century before Christ, the people became divided in doc- 
trines and split up into factions, both political and religious. 
The three prominent parties were named severally, the 
Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. Of these, the 
Pharisees were the wealthiest, the most learned, and the 
most influential, and were so called from a Hebrew word 
which signifies to separate, because they separated and 
distinguished themselves from others, by affecting uncom- 
mon sanctity, and by wearing a peculiar garment. Thus 
St. Paul calls the Pharisees " the straitest sect of our reli- 
gion," and Josephus says that " they were the most reli- 
gious of any of the Jews, and the most exact and skilful 
in explaining the laws." 

The two sources whence we obtain our knowledge 
of Phariseeism are the writings of Josephus and the books 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 159 

of the New Testament. Josephus was himself a Pharisee, 
and he has presented the views and characteristics of that 
sect with force and minuteness in his several writings. 
His opinion was that of one interested in the case, and his 
representations are the most favourable that could possibly 
be made ; yet, when closely examined, we cannot fail to 
discover how fully the leading features of this sect as por- 
trayed by their apologist and expounder, and as drawn in 
Holy Writ, agree. The colouring is different, but when 
denuded of all masks and sophistry, the lineaments are the 
same. We will take the Bible view of their case, because 
it is Divinely true, and because it is important to a right 
understanding of this parable, that we should look at them 
through the delineations of the Holy Ghost. 

From the New Testament, then, we learn that this sect 
was held in high repute as expositors of the law ; that they 
were very casuistical in unfolding the Scriptures ; full of 
proselyting zeal ; rigorous in ritual observances ; oppressive 
in their exactions; ostentatious in their charity and re- 
ligion ; pompous and self-inflated in their affected holiness ; 
covering up an intense love of sensual pleasures by a pre- 
tended stoicism ; diligent in the performance of every out- 
ward rite, that they " might be seen of men," while 
" inwardly they were ravening wolves ;" haughty and im- 
perious to inferiors, yet cringing parasites of royalty and 
power; neglecting the weightier matters of the law, and 
minutely critical in tithing and doing what the law did not 
require ; " serpents" in wisdom, but leaving the trail of their 
slimy deeds behind them; "vipers" in the sudden and un- 



160 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

expected stings which they fastened wherever they thought 

they could strike their fangs with impunity ; " graves," over 

w T hich the people walked and knew not the hollowness 

beneath until they fell into the pit; "whited sepulchres," 

which indeed " appear beautiful outward, but within were 

full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." Thev substi- 

t/ 

tuted human traditions for God's Word ; made their boast of 
the law by wearing broad phylacteries, and yet dishonoured 
the law ; turned their prayers into instruments of covetous- 
ness and extortion ; " compassed sea and land to make one 
proselyte," and then made him "twofold more a child of hell 
than themselves ;" united in the one aim of destroying Jesus, 
and effected their purpose through bribery, blasphemy, per- 
jury, and a bitter vindictiveness, that could slake its thirst 
for blood only in the opened veins and riven heart of the 
Messiah. So that it is unquestionably true, as has been 
well remarked by Mosheim, " that the religion of the Pha- 
risees was for the most part founded in consummate hypo- 
crisy ; and that in general they were the slaves of every 
vicious appetite; proud, arrogant, and avaricious; consult- 
ing only the gratification of their lusts, even at the very mo- 
ment when they professed to be engaged in the service of their 
Maker." Yet their pretended claims to the guardianship 
of the law ; their rabbinical learning ; their great outward 
sanctity, gave them such influence with the people, that if 
they gave out any report against a high priest or king, 
they were believed ; while their political influence was so 
vast, that at times they virtually ruled the people through 
the almost automaton hands that held the sceptre. No 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 161 

wonder, then, that John the Baptist, and our blessed Lord, 
whose omniscient eye took in at a glance their whole 
character, denounced them in the strongest terms as 
" serpents," as " generations of vipers," as unable to escape 
the damnation of hell ? 

We turn now to contemplate another class. As the 
Pharisee was in the highest repute among the Jews, for 
sanctity, the Publican was regarded as the lowest of the 
race, in vice. At the time of our Saviour, Judea was a 
province of the Roman Empire, — subject, therefore, to 
Roman taxation ; and the Publicans were the officers em- 
ployed to collect the taxes. There were at this time two 
sorts of people called Publicans; the Mancipes, and the 
Socii. The " Mancipes" were those who farmed the taxes 
of the several provinces ; had the oversight of the inferior 
Publicans ; received their accounts and collections, and 
transmitted them to the Qusestores JErarii, who presided 
over the finances at Rome. These Mancipes were some- 
times Roman knights ; and Cicero makes honourable men- 
tion of them in his orations, Pro Lege Manilla and Pro 
Plancio. 

The " Socii" were a lower class of Publicans, to whom 
the Mancipes let out their several districts in smaller 
sections, and whose duty it was to collect from the people 
the sums levied by the senate. Both of these are properly 
styled " Telonai ;" though the former are those whom the 
Greeks call " Architelonai ;" which term St. Luke applies 
to Zaccheus. 

While, then, the Mancipes or Architelonai were gene- 
11 



162 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

rally men of probity and morality, and mostly of the 
Equestrian order, the Socii or lower class of Telonai, were 
frequently freedmen or slaves, and are spoken of with 
great contempt by heathen, as well as Jewish writers. 
Theocritus says of them — " Among the beasts of the wil- 
derness, bears and lions are the most cruel ; among the beasts 
of the city, the publican and the parasite." The reason 
of this general hatred was their rapacity and extortion ; 
for they oppressed the people with unlawful exactions in 
order to enrich themselves. 

Besides, Publicans were peculiarly odious to the Jews, 
who looked upon them as the instrument of their subjec- 
tion to Rome, and who consequently regarded them as out 
of the pale of civilized society. ii.ccordingly (in the New 
Testament), we find them joined with harlots and sinners, 
and other profligate persons ; hence the objection made to 
our Lord, that He was " the friend of publicans and sin- 
ners," was designed as a reproachful slur upon His charac- 
ter. The Publican in the parable was one of this lower 
or despised order, with whom the self-righteous Pharisee 
thought it sinful to converse, and whom he regarded as 
iC the offscouring of all things." 

In conformity with the custom of the Jews, both the 
Pharisee and the Publican went up into the temple to 
pray at the hour of prayer. In common discourse, the 
word "temple" comprehended all the chambers, courts, 
and colon ades connected with the sacred edifice on Mount 
Moriah. When, therefore, it is said that the Pharisee and 
the Publican, that Peter and John, that Paul and Timothy, 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 163 

went up into the temple, nothing more is meant than that 
they went into one of the courts of the temple, and not 
into the sacred building itself, which contained the Holy 
and Most Holy Place ; for into the Holy Place none but 
priests were admitted, and into the Holy of Holies only 
the High Priest could enter, and he but once a year, and 
then only with the blood of the atonement and the censer 
of burning incense. Into the temple, strictly so called, 
our Lord himself never entered, though He frequently 
visited its courts and walked and taught in its porches. 

The " hour of prayer" was the " third and ninth hour" 
of Jewish time, corresponding to the nine o'clock in the 
morning and three o'clock in the afternoon of our compu- 
tation; and the place where prayers were wont to be 
made was that part of the temple called " the court of the 
Israelites," which was divided into 'two portions by an 
ascent of fifteen steps — the lower being appropriated to 
the women, and the higher to the men. 

But though the Pharisee and the Publican came with 
the same ostensible purpose to the temple, yet how widely 
diverse in their devotions ! " The Pharisee stood and 
prayed thus with himself." There is something quite 
emphatic in the phrase prayed " with himself," as if his 
prayer was for his own satisfaction, for the gratification of 
his own pride, for the laudation of his own merit. He in 
whose heart there is no godly humility, will always pray 
"with himself," rather than to God. The Publican 
" stood," also, because it was not permitted to pray in the 
temple in any other posture ; though elsewhere kneeling 



164 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

and bowing of the head were practised. " I will either/* 
says an old divine, speaking of the posture in prayer, " J 
will either stand as a servant before my Master, or kneel 
as a suppliant to my King ; but I will not dare sit as an 
equal." 

The prayer of the Pharisee (if such it can be called) was, 
" God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, un- 
just, extortioners ; or even as this Publican. I fast twice 
in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." There is in 
this prayer great self-complacency, ostentatious devotion, 
and a boastful liberality. There was no humility of soul, 
no confession of sin, no craving of Divine pardon. It w T as 
rather the proud heart condescending to tell God how good 
it was, and how much it had done for Him ; while, at the 
very moment of prayer, disdain for a fellow worm dwelt 
in his heart and was uttered by his lips. He "went up" 
to the court of the temple, and " stood" in the attitude of 
prayer, to pronounce in the ear of God a eulogy upon his 
own virtues. 

The Publican, " standing afar off," at the other side of 
the Men's Court, was so abased in his own estimation 
that he " would not so much as lift up his eyes unto Hea- 
ven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to 
me a sinner." Here is manifested conscious guilt, deep 
penitence, profound humility, sincere confession, and ear- 
nest petition. The words which he utters are few, but he 
condenses in them the whole force and fervour of his soul. 
The prayer is brief, but effective. It comes from a heart 
awakened by the Holy Ghost to a sense of its guilt, and 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 165 

made conscious of merited wrath ; the cry for mercy proves 
that there was a felt deserving of judgment; the appeal to 
God evidenced a knowledge of sin as committed against 
Him, and of pardon as flowing only from Him ; the calling 
of himself " a sinner" was a confession of iniquity, which 
was the first step to repentance; while repentance and 
conversion were not far distant from him who was so over- 
powered by conscious vileness and needed grace, as to pray, 
with smiting upon his breast, " God be merciful to me a 
sinner." This petition therefore, in its closest analysis, 
develops all the elements of genuine prayer, and illustrates 
the fact, how the deep yearnings of the heart can be con- 
densed into one terse and vigorous ejaculation, that shall 
enter into the ear of the Lord of Sabaoth. 

What a contrast to the prayer of the Pharisee ! There 
is here no boasting, no self-laudation, no ungenerous com- 
parison of himself with others ; but self-renunciation, self- 
abasement, and an unreserved casting of himself upon the 
mercy of God as his only shelter from the curse of His 
broken law. 

The result of these two prayers our Lord gives us in the 
concluding words of the parable, saying, " I tell you this 
man (the Publican) went down to his house justified, rather 
than the other ; for every one that exalte th himself shall 
be abased, and he that humble th himself shall be exalted." 

The prayer of the Publican secured for him the favour 
of God ; and, being pardoned through the abounding mercy 
which he so earnestly craved, he became, in the sight of 
God, as one who had not sinned, as a righteous or justified 



166 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

person, to whom pertained the promise of eternal life, and 
from whom had been removed the condemning power of 
the law, for he was "justified freely" by the grace of God. 

The Pharisee received no such answer to his prayer. 
He had prayed "with himself," and of course God did not 
heax him, to answer him ; he sought no mercy, and conse- 
quently none was received. So he went down from the 
temple to his house as he went up, a proud, self-righteous 
hypocrite. 

This parable has two very important designs, viz., to re- 
buke religious pride or Phariseeism, and to point out the 
true way in which sinners should sue for pardoning grace, 
agreeably to the moral drawn by our Saviour Himself : 
" Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he 
that humbleth himself shall be exalted." 

Religious pride or Phariseeism exhibits itself in a great 
variety of ways ; and though its marks cannot always be 
read in the outward character, its ravages in the soul are 
naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have 
to do. 

Following the course of thought suggested by the 
parable, we remark, that the first sign of religious pride or 
Phariseeism, is to " trust in themselves that they are 
righteous." The Pharisees vainly supposed that they made 
themselves righteous by their own works ; and not only so, 
but, by a delusion stranger still, they supposed that God 
would look upon those works precisely as man looked upon 
them. They had so completely corrupted the Word of 
God by their traditions, that they had lost a true know- 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 167 

ledge of some of His most necessary attributes. As for 
understanding the nature of true righteousness, either 
as resulting from a perfect obedience to God's law, or as a 
casting of the soul upon God's mercy, through faith in an 
anticipated Redeemer, it scarcely found lodgment in their 
minds. They reduced their religion to human standards ; 
estimated their good works at a human valuation ; and 
then measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing 
themselves among themselves, came to indulge much self- 
conceit; and because friends flattered, and parasites praised, 
and the ignoble crowd stood in awe of their apparent 
sanctity, they esteemed themselves to be the most religious 
men of the day, the possessors of a righteousness that 
would fully justify them in the sight of God. In this low 
standard of religion, and in this self-righteous judgment, 
they are followed by many professedly good people at the 
present day. Because such persons have been guilty of no 
great crime ; because they are not notorious evil livers ; 
because they are zealous for the outward services of religion, 
and the visible means of grace ; because they are regular 
in the discharge of public duties, and possess great worldly 
integrity blended with an unimpeached morality and an 
attractive amiability, they readily, under the flattery of 
friends, think within themselves that they are righteous. 
The adversary of their souls lulls them into security with 
this deceptive thought ; makes them more and more pleased 
with their state ; keeps from them as much as possible 
whatever will alarm their fears, or break up their delusion ; 
and thus causing them to tread in slippery places, " their 



168 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

feet shall slide in due time." The true Christian casts 
away all his personal righteousness in which he once 
trusted, as filthy rags, and trusts for his righteousness to 
the imputed merits of his dear Redeemer, made his by that 
appropriating faith which is itself the gift of God. He 
loathes himself; his language is, " Behold, I am vile." He 
is ready to put his hand upon his mouth, and his mouth in 
the dust, and cry " Unclean ! unclean !" He sees in himself 
nothing but vileness — in God nothing but holiness ; in the 
law nothing but righteousness; and in Christ alone, the 
Redeemer of his soul from the impending curse of God. 
Thus he finds no righteousness of a justifying character in 
himself; it is all derived from Christ, and he is accounted 
as righteous "only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ, by faith." So long as a man " trusts in him- 
self that he is righteous," he will never seek to be clothed 
upon with Christ's righteousness; but this is the only 
righteousness which will avail with God, or secure our sal- 
vation : hence the absence of it, like the simple lack of the 
wedding garment, will insure being cast into outer dark- 
ness, "where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing 
of teeth." 

A second mark of religious pride or Phariseeism is, to 
" despise others." This is a natural and necessary result 
of self-righteousness, a great part of which consists in com- 
paring one's self with those around, and drawing invidious 
conclusions, as the Pharisee in the temple did, in reference 
to the Publican. 

There are, it must be confessed, proud and haughty pro- 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 169 

fessors of religion, who look down upon their fellow Chris- 
tians, because they occupy lower stations in the Church or 
in social life, because they are less educated and refined, or 
because of their less apparent piety. They are keen-sighted 
in detecting the errors and failings of their friends and 
neighbours ; and they delight to depreciate real talent and 
true worth, in the hope that, by so doing, they will elevate 
their own position and character. Hence, they are devoid 
of that " charity" which " suffereth long and is kind," which 
" vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave 
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, 
thinketh no evil ;" without which, says St. Paul, " the 
tongues of men and of angels," "the gift of prophecy," the 
possession of a "faith" that "could remove mountains," 
the bestowal of " goods to feed the poor," and the giving 
of one's " body to be burned," is profitless and vain ; for 
prophecies " shall fail," tongues " shall cease," knowledge 
"shall vanish away," but "charity never faileth," for it is 
the greatest of the three abiding graces of the Christian 
life. 

The despising of others proves us to have an unkind 
and censorious spirit, widely at variance with the Gospel 
of Christ. Xt proves us to be under the influence of ma- 
lign and selfish passions, which are, in all instances, of Sa- 
tanic origin. It proves us to be devoid of the Spirit of 
Christ, who was no respecter of persons ; and St. Paul tells 
us, " If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none 
of His." It proves us to be deficient in self-knowledge, or 
in an understanding of our true position before God, or of 



170 THE PARABLES UNFOLI»EL. 

our true relations to Jesus Christ. It proves that we are 
puffed up in our fleshly minds, thinking of ourselves above 
that we ought to think. It proves, in fine, that we have 
not the first element of the true Christian, but that all our 
professions, from the foundation-stone to the turret, being 
laid upon the shifting sand, will soon fall and bury us in 
its ruins. 

A third trait of religious Phariseeism is, the cultivation 
of a mere ostensive piety. 

The Pharisees practised their religion "to be seen of 
men." The wide phylacteries, the enlarging the borders 
of their garments, the long prayers, the sounding alms- 
trumpet, the washings and ablutions, the sanctimonious 
visage, the rigid fastings, the scrupulously paid tithes, 
were all done for show, to make an outward impression 
upon the popular mind ; and this was carried to such an 
extent, that our Saviour compared them to whited sepul- 
chres, " which indeed appear beautiful outwards, but within 
are full of dead men's bones, and all uncleanness.' , 

Nor has this feature of Phariseeism been done away. 
It exists in full vigour at the present day. We would not 
be uncharitable, but are we not warranted by the Bible and 
daily observation in saying, that a large portion of the 
religion of Christendom is a surface religion ; a praying of 
the lips, and not of the heart; a bowing of the knees, 
but not of the soul; a singing with the voice, but not 
of the spirit; and a going up to the courts of the Lord, 
not with singleness of purpose to worship Him who is a 
Spirit in the beauty of holiness, but because it is the decent 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 171 

custom of society, and to be gazed at by the great assembly ? 
Religious forms are necessary to the fencing in and pro- 
tection of the faith, but whoever trusts in them, rather 
than in the faith which they enclose, is leaning upon the 
hope of the hypocrite, which " will perish with the giving 
up of the ghost." We are made true children of God, not 
by becoming strict rubricians, or minute ritualists • tithing, 
as it were, the anise, mint, and cumin, to the exclusion 
of the weightier matters of the law; 'but by being born 
again of water and the Holy Ghost. We must observe 
rubrics, and conform to rites, and obey canons, as means 
whereby we gain important religious benefits ; but not as 
an end, to rest in them alone. Whoever trusts to the forms 
of religion alone for salvation, trusts to the mere scaffolding 
of the Church, which shall be taken down when the whole 
building, "fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy 
temple in the Lord." God recognises no religion that 
dwells not in the soul, that springs not from His Holy 
Spirit, and that does not work by faith and purify the 
heart. 

A fourth trait of Phariseeism is, to boast of one's good- 
ness. 

We have been struck, on reading some of the ancient 
Rabbins, with the unblushing egotism of the Pharisees. 
Humility was unknown, self-praise was a virtue, and their 
perpetual ambition was to seek out the chief seats and 
high places of earth. 

The sound common sense of modern society puts a strong 
restraint upon this egotistical spirit, so that it does not 



172 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

betray itself as much now as then ; still there is much of 
it abroad, masked under affected humility, seeking to win 
praise by a false meekness, that only half conceals the 
pride of heart that lurks beneath. But no true Christian 
is a boasting Christian. One of the first works of the 
Spirit of God upon the heart is to take down the idol self, 
and erect Christ on its vacant pedestal ; and when Christ 
takes possession of our heart, we feel so vile and sunken in 
His presence, so worthless and unprofitable, so leprous with 
sin, and hell-deserving with an ever accumulating guilt, 
that we, like the Publican, scarcely dare lift up our eyes to 
Heaven, much less to boast of our goodness or make a 
parade of our virtues. A boasting Christian is a living 
libel on the cross of Christ. Instead of talking of our 
goodness, or praising our piety, let us look at our sins in 
the light of God's countenance, and bewail our shortcoming 
beneath the outstretched arms of the Crucified. 

When we can work out our salvation, we shall be privi- 
leged to boast ; but so long as salvation is " not of works, 
but of grace," being in very truth "the gift of God," 
"boasting is excluded." For x the poor, humble, Christ- 
dependent penitent is justified by God, before the praying, 
fasting, tithing, alms-giving, yet boasting Pharisee. 

The other lesson which this parable teaches, is the spirit 
in which sinners should approach God, as indicated by the 
prayer of the Publican, and the words of our Saviour, " He 
that humbleth himself shall be exalted." By reason of 
original sin, which "is the fault and corruption of every 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 173 

man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of 
Adam," we have alienated ourselves, and that radically, 
from the love and favour of God. Keturn to Him we 
must before our sins can be pardoned, and our souls be 
saved. But how shall we return ? We cannot come to 
Him as claimants of His favour, for we have no claims 
where we have forfeited every right and title to regard. 
We cannot come as purchasers, bartering our own goodness 
for God's mercy, for our boasted righteousness is as filthy 
rags, vile and worthless; nor can we throw ourselves just 
as w T e are upon God's clemency, and run the risk of accept- 
ance and consequent salvation, for God out of Christ " is a 
consuming fire ;" and such presumptuous conduct would be 
only rushing " upon the thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler." 
The only way of access to the mercy of God is through 
the blood of Jesus Christ. This is the way of His 
own appointment, to which He has annexed all His 
promises and blessings, and out of which, seek it as much 
as men may, they will find no salvation. We can be 
saved only in God's w r ay; and every attempt to scale 
the gate of heaven by schemes of man's devising, is in- 
sulting to God, as it virtually discredits His wisdom, mercy, 
goodness, and truth ; and is ruinous to man, for the 
Bible distinctly declares that there is "none other name 
under heaven given among men whereby they can be 
saved." 

We must come to God, then, conscious of our condition 
as sinners, confessing our iniquities, forsaking and truly 



174 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

repenting of our sins past, pleading for mercy for Jesus 
Christ's sake, and resting the strength of our plea on the 
infinite merits and perfect sacrifice of the Lamb of God, 
"who taketh away the sins of the world." This is taking 
God at His word, and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ 
as our only hope and salvation • and when, through the 
operation of the Holy Ghost, we are enabled to lay hold 
on this " hope set before us" in the Gospel, then do we find 
a peace and joy which the world can neither give nor take 
away. These are the authenticating seals of the Spirit, 
" whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption," cer 
tifying to us, under the hand of the Third Person of the 
adorable Trinity, that " there is now no condemnation to 
them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh 
but after the Spirit." This is the only way to approach 
God, through repentance and faith ; and these are the gift 
of God, to be sought for by earnest prayer and supplication ; 
for it is only in Christ that God is found " reconciling the 
world unto Himself." 

Great, then, is the encouragement which the truly peni- 
tent and believing have to come to Jesus. What though, like 
the Publican, they be regarded as the offscouring of all 
things ? Christ came " to save sinners :" What though they 
feel their vileness so as to cause them to smite upon their 
breast in anguish, and be afraid to lift up so much as their 
eyes to heaven? the deeper the consciousness of guilt, the 
more they feel the need of a Saviour, and the more precious 
becomes His salvation. We cannot be too humble, for 
" He resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." 
We cannot be too full in our confessions, for " He that 



THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 175 

confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy." We 
cannot be too penitential for our transgression, for it is " the 
broken and contrite heart with which God is well pleased." 
We cannot be too strong in our faith, for " without faith it 
is impossible to please God." We cannot be too importu- 
nate in our supplication, for "the kingdom of heaven 
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Come, 
then, in humility, in godly sorrow, in true repentance, in 
simple faith, in earnest prayer to the Throne of Grace, and, 
like the Publican, we shall find acceptance with God, and 
go down to our house justified before Him. 






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12 



THE LABOUKERS IN" THE VINEYARD. 

"For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which 
went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he 
had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 
And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the market- 
place, and said unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard ; and whatsoever is right 
I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth 
and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and 
found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day 
idle ? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, 
Go ye also into the vineyard ; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So 
when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the 
labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And 
when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man 
a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received 
more ; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received 
it, they murmured against the good man of the house, saying, These last have 
wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne 
the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, 
I do thee no wrong : didst not thou agree with me for a penny ? Take that thine 
is, and go thy way ; I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful 
for me to do what I will with mine own ? Is thine eye evil, because I am good ? 
So the last shall be first, and the first last ; for many be called, but few chosen." 

Matt. xx. 1-16. 

THE materials out of which this parable is constructed 
require but little explanation, except what is necessary 
to understand the Jewish method of computing time. They 

179 



180 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

reckoned the day from sunrise to sunset, dividing it into 
twelve portions or hours ; consequently, " early in the 
morning," the time at which the " householder" first went 
out to hire labourers, answers to our six o'clock ; the " third 
hour," to our nine in the morning ; " the sixth hour," to 
our noon ; " the ninth hour," to our three in the afternoon ; 
and " the eleventh hour," to five o'clock, or an hour before 
sunset, reckoning it at equinoctial time. 

At these several hours " the lord of the vineyard" went 
out to the market-place (or bazaar, as it is termed in the 
East, the ordinary resort of porters and labourers waiting 
for employment), to get workmen for his vineyard, and hired 
five different sets of labourers. 

" When even was come," the steward was directed to 
" call the labourers and give them their hire, beginning 
from the last unto the first." The eleventh-hour labourers 
therefore advanced, and " received every man a penny" — 
a sum equal to about fifteen cents of our money, and which 
was then the usual wages of a labourer, and the pay of a 
soldier. Seeing this, those who had laboured all day sup- 
posed that, when their turn to be paid came, they would 
receive more, "and they likewise received every man a 
penny." They had laboured three, six, nine, and eleven 
hours more than the first paid labourers ; had toiled, some 
of them, through " the burden and heat of the day," and they 
thought that they had a right to more wages ; and though 
they took the stipulated penny, yet they "murmured 
against the good man of the house," as if he had done them 
great injustice. Turning, however, to one who, perhaps, 



THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 181 

was foremost in complaining, he said, " Friend, I do thee 
no wrong. Didst thou not agree with me for a penny ?" 
I did not compel you to labour ; I hired you at the usual 
wages ; you agreed to my offer ; you have done your part, 
which was, to labour until sunset, I have done mine, which 
was, to pay you a penny. Where is the injustice of this ? 
Therefore, "take that thine is, and go thy way. I will 
give unto this last even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for 
me to do what I will with mine own ? Is thine eye evil, 
because I am good ?" 

Many interpretations have been given to this parable. 
The different hours specified have by some been referred to 
the several ages of man ; the call to labour in the Lord's 
vineyard being made in many cases, " early in the morning" 
of life, as with Samuel and Timothy ; in others, at the 
third hour, or youth, as in Ihe cases of Joseph and Josiah ; 
in others at the sixth, or manhood hour, as was done to 
the Apostles of the Lord ; in others at the ninth, or 
declining hour; and in some extraordinary cases, as the 
penitent thief at the hour before life's sunset. 

Other commentators refer the periods at which the 
labourers were hired to the several ages of the world ; as 
that the first call was made in the world's " early morn- 
ing," in Eden ; the third-hour call was in the day of Noah ; 
the sixth-hour call, in the times of the Mosaic' dispen- 
sation ; the ninth-hour call was in the day of Christ's 
advent ; and the eleventh was the mission to the Gentiles. 

Various other interpretations have been made of these 
calls; but it will be unnecessary as well as unprofitable to 



182 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

consume time in running out any of these analogies, as we 
shall thereby be led away from the scope and import of the 
parable, as they unfold themselves in the circumstances 
under which it was delivered, and the moral which our 
Lord deduced. The points which are distinctly brought 
out in the parable, and which it is important for us to 
know, are these : 

1st. That there is a vineyard in which to work. Under 
the similitude of a vine stock, or a vineyard, the Bible fre- 
quently represents the Jewish and the Christian Church. 
It seems to be a favourite idea of the olden prophets, being 
used by David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel ; 
and our Lord often employs the same imagery to illustrate 
the relations which the Church holds to himself and to the 
world. The fitness of this language to express what is de- 
signed is peculiarly felicitous ; for a vineyard was most prized 
and esteemed of all possessions ; required most anxious care 
at all seasons of the year, and yielded to the diligent hus- 
bandman a larger return than any other culture. 

The Christian Church is now what the Jewish Church 
was in the Levitical dispensation, "the vineyard of the 
Lord of Hosts." It is fenced off from the world by the 
forms of a public profession of faith in Christ ; planted with 
the " choicest vine," even Christ, " the true vine," and dressed 
by husbandmen of God's calling and appointment, whose 
duty it is so to superintend the culture, as that it shall bring 
forth fruit to the glory of " the Lord of the vineyard." 

In this vineyard, or visible Church of Christ, there is 
much work to be done, more than sufficient to tax all the 



THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 183 

energies of mind and body ; and the call is, " Go work 
to-day in my vineyard." There is the work of weeding out 
and cultivating one's* own heart until it becomes fruitful with 
all the graces of the Spirit. There is the work of main- 
taining purity of life and faith in the particular church 
with which we are connected. There is the work of bring- 
ing those around us under the influences of Gospel truth 
and Gospel institutions : the vast home work of the Church, 
embracing all agencies and instrumentalities necessary to 
the tillage of the domestic field. There is, lastly, the work 
of spreading the religion of Jesus " into the regions beyond ;" 
the great foreign work of the Church, by which it is to act 
upon its Lord's commission, "Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the Gospel to every creature." " The whole world 
lieth in wickedness," and the earthly instrumentality 
whereby it is to be converted to God is in the keeping of pro- 
fessing Christians. They are to be " co-workers with God;" 
and, if they fail to labour to the extent of their ability, the 
responsibility of lost souls and of disobeyed commands 
will rest upon them for ever. 

2d. All who are not labouring in Christ's vineyard are 
" idle." Not that they are physically idle ; not that they 
are intellectually idle ; nor yet that they are morally idle, 
for that is impossible, as every man in one sense is morally 
active. The soul is ever working; thoughts are busy 
there, passions wrestle there, affections move there, and 
never is there a moment when there is vacuity and repose. 
But by " idle" is meant unprofitably employed. All unpro- 
fitable employment of our time is virtual idleness, even in 



184 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

a worldly and business aspect ; how much more so in a 
heavenly and spiritual one ! Everything is morally unpro- 
fitable which has not a tendency to advance the glory of 
God and the salvation of our souls. Unconverted men, 
though they may be busy about their farms, their studies, 
their merchandise, are not doing anything for the glory of 
God, or for the salvation of their own souls ; hence, all 
unconverted men are spiritually " idle." 

They may be diligent in working out a worldly morality, 
but they are spiritually idle ! They may be sedulous in 
building up a self-righteousness by works of charity, of 
ritualism, of penance, of will-worship, of Pharisaic devo- 
tion, but they are only busy idlers in the sight of God. 
Their works are vain — their labour shall not profit — and 
their toil shall only end in their deeper ruin ; because they 
are not working in the field of the Church, and conse- 
quently are not obeying the injunction of the Divine 
" Householder," " Go ye also into the vineyard." 

3d. It is never too late to go into the vineyard of the 
Church. This remark is made not to encourage presump- 
tion, but to rebuke despair. The uncertainty of life, the 
possibility of grieving away the Holy Spirit, the danger 
that our mental powers may not be preserved to us in our 
last sickness, or that we may be suddenly summoned to 
the bar of God, warn us with great force against any delay 
in making our peace with God. To postpone, therefore, a 
profession of Christ's religion because we may, perchance, 
enter the vineyard at the eleventh hour, is most daring 
rebellion and impiety towards God, and a solemn trifling 



THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 185 

with our soul, which should fill us with trembling and 
alarm. When we say, therefore, that it is not too late to 
go into the vineyard, we do not mean that it will not be 
too late if we put it off to a future day ; for we know 
nothing of the future, not even " what a day may bring 
forth ;" but we mean that if we have put it off to the pre- 
sent time, it is not too late now to go to Christ." 

All the invitations of the Gospel are addressed to us in 
the present tense. The language of the Bible is, " Behold, 
now is the accepted time ; behold, now is the day of salva- 
tion." To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your 
hearts." " Exhort one another daily while it is called to- 
day" " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." There is no 
to-morrow in all the offers of grace, or in all the overtures 
of the Spirit. To-morrow is a fiction of time — it never 
comes. It is a present work that we have to do — there is 
a present time allotted to us for doing it ; there is a present 
Spirit vouchsafed to begin and carry on the work. Avail 
ourselves of these present privileges, and the future shall 
be bright wath heavenly glory; neglect them, and the 
future shall be dark with eternal woe. You may have 
passed the " early morning" of your life, and " the third 
hour" may find you out of the vineyard; w^e call to you, 
then, in this third hour, this dew-time of youth, "Go ye 
also into the vineyard." You may have reached the meri- 
dian of life, and the " sixth hour" may find you still 
" idle ;" and w r e call to you, therefore, in the noon of man- 
hood, "Go ye also into the vineyard." You may have pro- 
gressed into the afternoon of life, and " the ninth hour" 



186 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

may find you still unengaged in Christ's service ; and we 
call to you, therefore, in this waning period of the day, 
" Go ye also into the vineyard." Or it may be that " the 
shadows of the evening are stretched out," and the sun of 
your existence, already far down in the western sky, is 
hastening to his setting; and at this eleventh hour you 
are and have been " all the day idle ;" and we cry out to 
you, therefore, with but one hour of daylight in your 
possession, and the night of death fast coming on, " Go ye 
also into the vineyard ; and whatever is right, that shall ye 
receive." Few, however, who pass the third and the sixth 
hour out of the vineyard, enter it at the ninth or the 
eleventh. We know of many who gave themselves to 
God's service in life's morning, in life's noon-tide ; but the 
number of those who become His in the evening of their 
days, are very few ; and the Bible records but one eleventh- 
hour convert, the thief on the cross : one ! that none might 
despair ; only one ! that none might presume. 

4th. God will reward all who labour for Him, when 
their work is done. It is not until even comes that the 
Lord of the Vineyard will " call the labourers and give 
them their hire." "We often labour in this world without 
seeming to receive any reward ; nor should we expect to 
receive it here. But, though long delayed, it will come at 
last, for " He is faithful tha.t promised." It is, to a great 
extent, withheld from us here, because our work is not all 
done when we are removed from the vineyard. We live 
and we work in our influence and in the agencies and 
instrumentalities which we set in motion, long after we 



THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 187 

have passed away. Though dead, we yet speak to future 
generations ; and, as it is a principle of the Divine economy, 
to hold us responsible not only for our actual words and 
overt deeds, but for everything that results from our 
example, our influence, our labours, so is it impossible to 
mete out the rewards which pertain to us through Divine 
grace, until, in the final closing up of earthly scenes and 
accounts, it shall be seen what we accomplished for Christ ; 
not merely what we did for him living, but what we did for 
him through means and institutions and influences which 
emanated from us, and which were in active operation 
long after we had slumbered in the dust. Hence it is that 
the day of judgment is placed at " the end of the world :" 
because then only shall all the lines of influence, good and 
bad, be fully run out ; then, only, will all the results of our 
lives, good and bad, be fully developed. Take, for example, 
the work done by Paul. Could he have been rewarded 
(speaking after the manner of men) during his lifetime ? 
Is not the power of Paul still felt ? Is not the influence 
of Paul still at work ? and, though he died eighteen centu- 
ries ago, does he not speak to the dwellers in the nineteenth 
century, and to the inhabitants of England and America, 
as forcibly as he did to those who lived in the dawn of the 
Christian era, and who heard his oral teachings in Damas- 
cus,. Corinth, and Rome ? So of Augustine, Wiclif, Luther, 
Cranmer, Martyn, Simeon, and a whole galaxy of sainted 
ones, who now shine " as stars in the firmament." They 
have gone to their rest, and left their work, as the world 



188 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

would say, unfinished ; but not so ; their work is still going 
on, and will continue until time shall be no longer. It 
matters very little, therefore, whether we see much of the 
fruit of our labours while we tabernacle in the flesh, but 
when the even of the world comes, when the Lord of the 
Vineyard shall say, " Call the labourers" to the judgment- 
seat, and " give them their hire," then shall we receive 
" according to that which we have done, be it good or bad." 
Then can the sum total of our work be cast up ; then the 
whole amount of labour be known ; then the reward be 
rightly bestowed. 

Lastly, the reward that we shall receive will be nothing 
that we can claim of right, but will be bestowed upon us 
by the free sovereign grace of God. 

And here comes out the true intent and purpose of the 
parable. In the arbitrary division of the Bible into 
chapters, made by Cardinal Hugo in 1240, the chapter 
containing this parable was unfortunately cut off from the 
19th chapter, whereas it is, in fact, a continuation of it. 
In that 19th chapter we find that a "Young Ruler," with 
much external reverence for Christ, had come to him with 
the inquiry, " Good Master, what shall I do to inherit 
eternal life ?" Our Lord told him what to do, and put his 
sincerity to the test by ordering him " to sell all that he 
had, and give to the poor," — a test which discovered the 
latent covetousness of his heart, and one which he did not 
attempt to carry out, for " he went away sorrowful, for he 
had great* possessions." 



THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 189 

This striking example of clinging to the seen and the 
earthly, rather than to the unseen and the heavenly, gave 
occasion for Christ to say, " Verily I say unto you, that a 
rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven;" 
which so amazed the disciples that they exclaimed in 
wonder, " Who then can be saved ?" But Peter, foremost 
among the disciples in speaking as in acting, said to the 
Saviour, " Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee ; 
what shall we have therefore V We who, unlike the rich 
young man, have left all and followed thee. In the spirit 
of a hireling who was looking to wages rather than to 
work, he seemed to think that something was deserved by 
them who had made such sacrifices, and who at the first 
call had gone into the vineyard ; and, in the working of a 
self-complacent mind, he wished to know what they would 
receive. Our Lord replies to them and says, " Every one 
that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or fathers, 
or mothers, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's 
sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit ever- 
lasting life ;" adding, " but many that are first shall be last, 
and the last shall be first ;" and then follows the parable 
under consideration, designed to show that the rewards of 
grace are not for /the first called alone, and do not follow 
the length of Christian service, but that while all shall 
receive the promised wages, viz., eternal life, God will do 
as he wills with his own infinite blessings, bestowing them 
when, where, and how he will, according to his own good 
pleasure. The value of the work stands not in the amount 



190 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

of labour performed, in the number of hours employed, or 
in bearing the burden and heat of the day, but in the ani- 
mus, the spirit in which it is done ; and that spirit should 
be humility, not boasting of long service, or arduous 
service ; not grudging at others' preference or others' 
wages, but regarding any pay as undeserved, and all 
reward as out of God's infinite grace, and not for the 
worthiness of individual merit. And as the work stands 
only in humility, so the reward stands only in grace. Do 
what we may ; heap up labour upon labour, and sacrifice 
upon sacrifice; yet there is so much of sin mixed with all 
that we do, that were we to receive according to the real 
merit of the works performed, they would each be cast out 
of God's sight as sinful, and we ourselves be driven from 
his presence. If the reward then is of grace, "it is no 
more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace ; but if 
it be of works, then is it no more grace, otherwise work 
is no more work." 

Would that we could feel this more ! It would humble 
our proud hearts ; it would bridle in our rampant spirits; it 
would abate our self-complacent minds, flattering ourselves 
tnat we deserve more, and grudging whatever is bestowed 
upon others; it would bring us more like docile, feeble, little 
children, to the feet of Jesus, causing us to cling to him by 
a simple faith, and to lean only upon the merits • of " His 
blessed passion and precious death." 

And then, too, how will it enhance the value of the 
reward to know that we deserved nothing ! That the 



THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 191 

best, the most diligent, the most faithful, was, after all, but 
an unprofitable servant, and that the reward is the expres- 
sion of the overflowing love and bounty of our God, given 
to us, not for our service or for our deservings, but on 
account of Christ's pleadings and in virtue of his perfect 
sacrifice. 



ffijfi $axm fig-fe. 



13 



THE BAEEEN FIG-TEEE. 

" A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard ; and he came and sought 
fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, 
Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none : cut 
it down ; why cumbereth it the ground ? And he answering, said unto him, Lord, 
let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, 
well ; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down." Luke xiii. 6-9. 

THIS, like several other of our Lord's parables, has a 
double signification : one immediate, pertaining to the 
Jews ; one ulterior, referring to all time. 

It primarily refers to the nation of Israel as a people 
whom God had chosen to be "His people," whom he had 
assiduously cultivated by special and long-continued mer- 
cies, and from whom it was very natural that He should 
expect fruit in some measure answerable to the blessing 
and labour bestowed. 

They proved, however, barren and unfruitful *.nd when 
He looked that they should have borne fruit, He found no- 
thing but the most aggravated sterility. In consequence 
of this, they were cut down as "a barren fig-tree;" rooted 
up from their ancient home, and scattered, like autumn 
leaves, by every wind under the expanse of heaven. 

In a more enlarged sense, this parable evidently refers 
to the unfruitful professors of Christ's religion, or to those 

195 



196 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

who are barren of all fruit of righteousness, under the influ- 
ences and within the enclosure of the Gospel vineyard. 

The professors of Christ's religion are emphatically 
" planted in the vineyard of the Lord," the Church ; for 
under the figure of a vineyard, the Bible represents both 
the Old and New Testament Church. In this spiritual 
vineyard they have better soil, better care, better protec- 
tion, than in the world without. There the Gospel is fully 
preached ; there the sacraments are duly ministered ; there 
the dews of the Spirit more surely descend; there the 
early and the later rain of reviving grace falls ; there the 
Sun of Kighteousness shines with full-orbed splendour, and 
the winds of the Spirit blow, and the husbandmen of God 
labour, to bring the trees of His planting to maturity and 
fruitfulness. Whatever is necessary to enrich the soil has 
been abundantly lavished, so that when we find any 
therein who are barren, we know that it is no fault of the 
ground, or of the sun, or of the rain, or of the husband- 
man, but of the tree itself; it is sapless, graceless; and a 
professor of religion, whose heart is devoid of spiritual 
vitality, and in whom there are no pulsations of a godly 
life, can no more bear fruit than a tree planted in the 
richest soil, and tended by the closest care, which yet has 
no sap, no vegetable blood vitalizing its trunk, and circu- 
lating through all its branches. The one case is just as 
impossible as the other. 

What Christ seeks, and what He has a right to expect 
of all the trees of His vineyard, is, fruit, good fruit ; not 
the leaves of profession only, which fall with the frosts of 



THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 19V 

time ; not the blossoms of promise merely, which drop off 
ere they come to maturity ; but " fruit meet for repentance/' 
" fruit unto holiness," " fruit unto eternal life." 

That there are unfruitful professors, is evident to all 
who look into the condition of the visible Church. We see 
them occupying the same position year by year, yet never 
discover any fruits of righteousness. Their lives give no 
evidence of piety ; they are indeed outwardly moral and 
religious, decent in all the externals of Christian duty, 
but there is an evident lack of inward grace. You discover 
no ardent love for Christ ; no kindling up of soul under 
the preaching of Divine truth; no warm outspringings of 
heart towards fellow Christians ; no generous liberality in 
the cause of Jesus ; no delight in talking about the 
Saviour ; no enjoyment in private prayer or meditation ; 
no desires after greater conformity to the Divine likeness ; 
and no strong cryings of soul after more faith, more love, 
more grace, more consecration of spirit. Where we mark 
the absence of these things, we have indubitable evidence 
of an unfruitful professor, a barren fig-tree. 

But, giving to the parable a wider scope, still we may 
say that all who live in Gospel lands, and within the sound 
of the church-going bell, are, in one sense, planted in the 
vineyard of the Lord, in contrast to those who dwell in 
heathen lands, where the Gospel of the Son of God has not 
been proclaimed. All those who live in Christian coun- 
tries, and within reach of the means of grace, even though 
they do not avail themselves of it, dwell, as it were, under 
" the droppings of the Sanctuary," and partake more or less 
of its influence. 



198 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

The influence of the Bible, the influence of the Sabbath, 
the influence of the Church, the influence of Christian 
institutions, the influence of a sanctified press, the influence 
of the godly lives of individual Christians, have a power 
fully moulding effect upon society. These influences 
combined, shape and fashion to a great extent the views 
and opinions of the people, and restrain, modify, and 
govern even those who are ashamed to acknowledge their 
power ; nay, even the sceptic, the licentious, the profane, 
the rabid infidel, deny it as they may, are under their potent 
sway, and are kept from committing the gross outrages 
which their several creeds permit, by the overawing power 
of Christian principle. It is a blessed thing to be connected 
by any links with the people of God, for the streams of 
mercy which flow to them, and the streams of godly in- 
fluence which flow from them, make broad bands of verdure 
on each side of their borders. 

From each one upon whom God has bestowed these 
numerous favours, the Master of the vineyard expects and 
seeks for fruit : it was to make us fruit-bearing that He 
surrounded us with these privileges and blessings, and we 
are guilty of great ingratitude if we suffer ourselves to be 
barren ; for if we yield no fruit of righteousness after so 
much has been done, the fault is all our own. 

Yet, in the midst of the anxiety of the Lord of the vine- 
yard to obtain fruit, He manifests the greatest forbearance. 
" Lo, these three years I come seeking fruit, and finding 
none !" implying that He had given ample time for it to 
manifest its fruitfulness if it had any : days, ' months, 



THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 199 

years have passed, and yet no fruit appears. He does not, 
at the first indication of barrenness, cut us down ; there is 
no hasty procedure with our Lord ; He is long-suffering and 
full of forbearance, waiting to be gracious. Men act in hot 
haste, and repel injuries with prompt chastisement; but 
God arises to judgment only after long delay, and when the 
overtures of mercy have been signally disregarded. Beau- 
tifully has the Psalmist illustrated this, where, speaking of 
the perverseness of the children of Israel, and God's long- 
suffering towards them, he says, " But He being full of com- 
passion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not ; 
yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not 
stir up all His wrath." 

Thus is it now. You have perhaps been receiving bless- 
ings and mercies from your youth up, and many a blossom 
of hope has cheered the eye of watching friends. You 
have been watered and nursed as tender plants in the 
heritage of our Lord, and many a bud of promise has indi- 
cated the beginning of spiritual life; yet manhood, and 
mid life, and old age have been reached, while, as yet, no 
fruit appears. During all this while Christ has waited to 
be gracious. He has stood by looking at you in pity, call- 
ing to you in love, making the ground around you fertile 
with the rich blessings of the Gospel, but the barrenness 
is not removed, the fruit does not appear. When the 
angels sinned, there was no long-suffering and forbearance 
exhibited towards them ; their punishment followed close 
upon their sin, for such high-handed rebellion required high- 
handed justice. 



200 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

But He has not dealt so with us. His bearing has ever 
been that of a God waiting to be gracious. " The long- 
suffering of God," says St. Peter, " waited in the days of 
Noah while the ark was building, even one hundred and 
twenty years ;" and the entire history of the Jews is a record 
of God's forbearing mercy. In the days of Moses the Lord 
inquired, " How long shall I bear with this evil congregation 
which murmur against me ?" Hundreds of years after- 
wards Nehemiah exclaims, " Many years didst thou forbear 
them :" and later still, the Prophet Jeremiah adds, " The 
Lord could no longer bear, because of the evil of your 
doings." The New Testament exhibits the same feature 
of the Divine goodness. "God endureth," says St. Paul, 
" with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for 
destruction :" and St. Peter declares that the Lord is long- 
suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but 
that all should come to repentance. 

Thus is it now. God patiently waits upon sinners, to be 
gracious; He kindly stands at the door of their hearts 
knocking for entrance, and there you have kept Him until 
He says, " My head is filled with dew, and my locks with 
the drops of the night." But mercies having failed, for- 
bearance being no longer a virtue, God now comes to some 
determination : " Behold, these three years I come seeking 
fruit on this fig-tree, and find none; cut it down, why 
cumbereth it the ground ?" 

There are two reasons why God should cut down the 
barren fig-tree : its own uselessness, and its cumbering 
soil that might be better occupied. It was worthless in 



THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 201 

itself, and made the ground worthless on which it stood. 
The spiritually unfruitful man, be he a professor of religion 
or not, is useless in himself, and takes up room or cum- 
bers the vineyard with his presence; for as there is no 
middle ground of action, all who are not doing moral good, 
are doing moral harm ; according to the striking words 
of Christ, " He that is not with me is against me." Life is 
wasted to him who brings forth no fruits of righteousness. 
It may be crowded with what the world esteems noble and 
generous deeds; it may teem with the fruits of honour 
and fame ; the life of such a man may call forth eulogies, 
and his death panegyrics, while his name may be given in 
charge to applauding history : yet, if he has been toiling 
for the glories of time alone ; if he concentrated his ener- 
gies upon the ever-changing present ; if he has made no 
provision for his soul, and secured no peace with God 
through Jesus Christ, he is a barren fig-tree, a useless 
cumberer in God's moral vineyard. 

The test of moral usefulness consists in doing works 
that shall survive the things of time and sense. The 
region of such labours is the soul, the higher and eternal 
interests of our being. Here, is where fruitfulness must be 
seen. We must do deeds that shall live after the trump 
of the Archangel shall sound; deeds that conscience can 
approve in the hour of death — that Christ can applaud in 
the day of judgment — that will be remembered with 
delight through eternity. It will not be asked in the last 
day, did you build a city, or erect a kingdom, or lead an 
army to victory ; but did you bring forth fruits of right- 



202 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

eousness, did you cultivate the graces of the Spirit, did you 
do the humble works of a child of God. Have you 
laboured to extend the kingdom of Christ, and win souls 
to His sceptre; and if you have, though poor in this 
world's goods, and looked down upon by this world's 
nobles, you shall prove yourself to be a tree of God's 
planting, soon to be transplanted into the Paradise above. 

Not only are the lives of unconverted men useless as 
regards their souls, they are also cumberers or wasters of 
the ground. Their lives and their influence prove an 
hindrance to the Gospel. They oppose its progress in their 
own hearts, and throw the whole weight of their authority 
and example upon the side of the world, the flesh, and the 
devil. Every unrenewed man virtually and publicly 
declares, that he is opposed to the religion of Jesus Christ; 
that he has no confidence in the ordinances of the Church, 
no belief in the revelation of God. This, we repeat, is the 
virtual declaration of each unrenewed man; it is the 
language of his daily life. This may seem harsh judg- 
ment, but it is only plain Bible truth. 

Suppose an individual should present himself before you, 
and show you deeds properly drawn and duly authenti- 
cated, which were to place you in possession of a great yet 
distant estate. You listen to his story, read the deeds, 
examine the seals ; if now you proceed no further, and 
take no steps to secure this property, but on the contrary 
turn away from the whole subject — you say as strongly as 
actions can say, that you do not believe the report of the 
messenger, and that you discredit his pretended titles ; and 



THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 203 

by your neglect of him you virtually give the lie to all that 
he has said and shown you. This would be the judgment 
of every unbiassed mind.' Apply this to religion. The 
ambassador of Christ comes to you with the Word of God. 
He points out in it the title-deeds to an inheritance 
reserved in Heaven for you ; he shows you the means by 
which to secure it ; he offers to conduct you through the 
processes necessary to attain it ; he solemnly pledges the 
veracity of God to its truth ; and he establishes the 
genuineness and authenticity of his message by evidence 
that cannot be overthrown. If now you turn your back upon 
Christ, and refuse to believe on His name, you virtually 
declare your disbelief in the whole thing; or if, professing 
to believe it with your lips, you put off the work of salva- 
tion to a future day, you in effect say, I do not believe that 
God will be as strict as He says He will ; I will try His 
long-suffering a little longer ; and though the Holy Ghost 
says, " Now is the accepted time, behold, now is the day 
of salvation," yet I will run the risk of postponing repent- 
ance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
because He knows that I intend some time or other to 
become a Christian, and He will not therefore cut me 
down as a cumberer of the ground. In this delusion many 
sinners pass months and years, until they are " suddenly 
destroyed, and that without remedy." We are too apt to 
forget that there is a time beyond which God's Spirit will 
not strive, there is a boundary line over which mercy 
never steps. 

At the very point when the forbearance of God seems 



204 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

to end, an intercessor appears ; Christ comes into view, and 
pleads for " one year" more of probation. " Let it alone 
this year also : and if it bear fruit, well ; if not, after that 
thou shalt cut it down." He does not pray that it 
should never be cut down, but not now. Every sinner is 
at this moment under the condemnation of eternal death ; 
and the reason why he is not executed is, that Christ 
pleads, " Let him alone this year also !" 

This, however, is a reprieve, not a pardon ; a reprieve 
for a short time, yet long enough to make full trial. 
During this reprieve God is giving him the culture and 
tillage necessary to fruitfulness ; the means of grace, the 
bleeding Saviour, the striving Spirit, the ordinances of the 
Church. His position is one of extreme peril, and of 
extreme solicitude : of peril, because the time is short — 
the isthmus of probation between the land of hope and 
the world of despair is very narrow, and his feet stand on 
slippery places; of solicitude, because upon his resolves 
this year may hinge the destiny of his soul for ever. 

If, through the renewing influences of the Holy Ghost, 
sought for and received as the free gift of God, he becomes 
a "tree of righteousness," and "brings forth fruit," it is 
well : " well" in life, " well" in the hour of death ; " well" 
at the day of judgment, "well" throughout eternity. If 
not, then, after that probation ended, he shall be "cut 
down" as a "cumberer of the ground." And a fearful 
thing it will be to be " cut down," after having been by 
baptism planted in the vineyard, after having had years of 
spiritual culture under Gospel vine- dressers, and especially 



THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 205 

after having been spared yet longer on probationary 
ground, through the intercession of Christ Himself as the 
Master of the vineyard ; for to the guilt of disobeying the 
commands of God, and of slighting the ordinances of the 
Church, there is superadded the setting at nought of the 
Lord Jesus, under circumstances of the most deliberate 
contempt, which cannot fail to call down the wrath of the 
Almighty. To all such we commend the declaration of St. 
Paul to the Hebrews — " He that despised Moses' law died 
without mercy under two or three witnesses ; of how much 
sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy, 
who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath 
counted the blood of the covenant wherewith He was 
sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the 
Spirit of Grace ? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands 
of the living God." 



8j* §hp8t J%e: 



THE UNJUST JUDGE: THE IMPORTUNATE 

FRIEND. 

" There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man : 
and there was a widow in that city ; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me 
of mine adversary. And he would not for a while : but afterward he said within 
himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man ; yet because this widow troubleth 
me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord 
said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, 
which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them ? I tell you 
that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, 
shall he find faith on the earth ?" Luke xviii. 1-8. 

"Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say 
unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves ; for a friend of mine in his journey is come 
to me, and I have nothing to set before him ? And he from within shall answer 
and say, Trouble me not : the door is now shut, and my children are with me in 
bed ; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and 
give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and 
give him as many as he needeth." Luke xi. 5-8. 

THE parable of the Unjust Judge grew out of the circum- 
stances related by St. Luke in the seventeenth chapter. 
The Pharisees had demanded of Christ, "when the 
kingdom of God should come?" This impertinent curi- 
osity he justly rebukes ; but, at the same time, takes occa- 
sion, from their question, to foretell his disciples the dire 
effect that would attend the destruction of Jerusalem, 
14 209 



210 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

rivalling the horrors of a deluged world, or the ravages ol 
Sodom's conflagration. 

This announcement was calculated to depress their 
spirits and shake their faith : for, be it remembered, Christ 
offered no outward inducement to men to become His fol- 
lowers ; He gave no flattering encomiums ; He held out nc 
rich patronage ; He presented no anticipations of earthly 
pleasure, wealth, ease, or honours ; — but, on the contrary, 
told them that shame and reproach awaited them ; that 
they " would be hated of all men for His name's sake ;" and 
that " whosoever killed them would think that he did God 
service." 

In order, therefore, to teach them that they should not 
faint in the day of adversity, that there should be a de- 
liverer and a deliverance, and that the way and means of 
securing much of their needed help was in their own reach, 
he relates to them the parable of the Unjust Judge. The 
elements of the parable are quite simple, and need but 
little elucidation. Of the judge, two things are said — that 
" he feared not God, neither regarded man." 

This was a proverbial expression, used even by such 
classical writers as Homer and Euripides, denoting con- 
summate and unblushing wickedness; indeed, most of the 
heathen writers employ the term to signify one totally 
abandoned to all evil. 

Take away from man " the fear of God," and you fill the 
soul with every inward sin, and make it " a cag < f unclean 
birds." Take away from man " a regard for man," a proper 
respect for human opinion, when sound and wholesome, 



THE UNJUST JUDGE: THE IMPORTUNATE FRIEND. 211 

and you surround him with every outward sin, and make 
him a selfish despot, grinding out from his fellow men 
whatever may contribute to his own lusts or aggrandize- 
ment, reckless of their happiness, solicitous only for his 
own. Strike out from the heart both these elements — the 
fear of God and a regard for man — and you make him a 
monster with a human shape, but a devil's heart. When 
such sit upon the bench of law, or in the seat of equity, we 
may take up the lamentation of Isaiah, and say, " Judgment 
is turned away backward, and Justice standeth afar off, 
for truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter !" 

The other character introduced to us in this parable is 
a widow — a name which stirs the fountain of sympathy by 
telling us of sorrow, loneliness, and bereavement. Like a 
vine torn by the scathing lightning from the tree around 
which it clung, and left to trail in the dust, yet leaving still 
some tendrils clasping the rifted trunk, so is woman when 
Death writes " widow" on her broken heart. 

The introduction of this widow here gives increased 
interest and pathos to the parable. Left to struggle alone 
with the world, her natural protector gone, she has evi- 
dently been overreached or defrauded by one of those 
craven-hearted men, who, while they dare not oppress their 
own sex, yet cowardly triumph over unprotected woman- 
hood. The cases of such were specially provided for by 
God, and judges were bound by the Divine law to see that 
justice was meted out to the widow. " Ye shall not afflict 
any widow or fatherless," was the command of Jehovah ; 
and among the curses pronounced upon Mount Ebal, was 



212 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

that uttered by the Levites, "Cursed be he that perverteth 
the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow ; and 
all the people shall say, Amen !" 

The widow came to this judge to be avenged of her ad- 
versary. The word which our English translators have 
rendered " avenge," is from a Greek verb, which signifies to 
execute right or justice, to maintain one's right, or to de- 
fend one's cause. The Geneva Bible of 1557 translates it, 
"do me justice of mine adversary." 

The old English writers use the words avenge and revenge 
to signify, not evil intent and malice, as the terms now im- 
port, but simply the assigning to a plaintiff what is just, 
and thereby delivering him from the evil acts or purposes 
of his adversary. This poor widow then came to the unjust 
judge for simple justice, and he, by the law of God and 
man, was bound to give it to her ; but either through in- 
difference or indolence, for a long time he refused to give 
her audience. But put off once, she came again ; rebuffed 
to-day, she returned to-morrow ; and with an energy born 
amidst sorrow and nursed by oppression, she persisted in 
her appeal until the judge listened to her cry. To this he 
was moved, not by duty or compassion, but by her impor- 
tunity acting upon his selfishness ; for he gives the reason 
of this conduct when he says, " Though I fear not God, 
neither regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me 
I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary 
me." There is a great deal more of meaning in the word 
" weary," as used here, than appears upon its face to an 
English reader : hence, to understand its full force as an 



THE UNJUST JUDGE: THE IMPORTUNATE FRIEND. 213 

operating motive upon the mind of the judge, we must 
resort to its primitive signification. The original word 
literally means, to strike one under the eye, and was a 
term used by the boxers of the Grecian games to designate 
a stunning blow in that part of the face, which, more than 
any other, was galling to a pugilist ; it came at length to 
express by metaphor whatever is irksome, wearisome, or 
galling. The same word is used by St. Paul in the Co- 
rinthians, where speaking of his self-discipline he says, " I 
keep under my body," as if he had said I so ill treat or beat 
down my natural appetites and evil lusts that I keep the 
sinful desires of the flesh in subjection to the rule of my 
spiritual life, and thus my body is " kept under," or morti- 
fied in all its corrupt manifestations. 

It is a very homely but expressive rendering which good 
old Tyndale gives in his version three hundred years ago. 
" Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, 
lest at the last she come and liacjcje on me." Hagge is an 
Anglo-Saxon name for fury or goblin, answering some- 
what to the Hecate of mythology, and is used by Shak- 
speare to signify a witch or enchantress. To hag any one, 
then, is to harass or torment them with real or fancied 
terrors ; and this is what the martyr Tyndale meant, when 
he put the expression, " lest she come and hagge on me," 
into the mouth of the unjust judge. 

Let us turn now to the parable of the Importunate 
Friend at Midnight. 

The subject of our Saviour's discourse at the time this 
was uttered was prayer. He had Himself been "praying 



214 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

in a certain place;" and His disciples, standing probably at 
a respectful distance, yet observing His words and actions, 
felt a desire to know something of prayer themselves; 
reasoning, with much truth, that if He, their Lord and 
Master, needed to pray, much more was such devotion 
necessary for them. In addition to this incentive, they 
were stimulated still further to prefer the request, from the 
fact that John had taught his disciples to pray — had given 
them probably a form of prayer as the guide to their devo- 
tion ; and, therefore, not to be behind John's disciples in 
the privileges of grace, they approach Jesus with the 
request, " Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his 
disciples." 

Jesus immediately complies, by giving to them as a for- 
mulary what is commonly denominated the Lord's Prayer; 
that remarkable collection of petitions and ascriptions, 
which contain within themselves the elements of every 
prayer that can ever be offered by the faithful heart to our 
Father in Heaven. Each want of the renewed soul, each 
object of its most anxious desire, everything for which it 
can pray aright, lie enfolded in some one or other of the 
petitions of this prayer, as the majestic oak lies wrapt up 
in the acorn. The more we meditate upon the paragraphs 
of this prayer, the more profound and comprehensive do 
they appear ; no human mind can grasp the full meaning 
of any one of the sentences of this prayer, or sound the 
depths of its spiritual mysteries. It carries in itself the 
proof that Christ is Divine, for only a mind possessing 
Divinity could frame a prayer that should concentrate 



THE UNJUST JUDGE: THE IMPORTUNATE FRIEND. 215 

every possible aspiration of the soul and every known 
attribute of the Godhead ; giving to a few rude disciples a 
set of words which they readily comprehended and used, 
which yet, at the same time, is a form of prayer suited t.j 
every age of life, every period of time, every class of per- 
sons, every nation of earth, and to every condition of the 
soul, from the time that it draws the first breath of spirit- 
ual life, until at the hour of death it exchanges the prayers 
of earth for the praises of heaven. 

Having given His disciples this model prayer, and thus 
taught them for what they should pray, the necessary ele- 
ment of acceptable petition, He proceeds to show them how 
they should pray, and this He does in two w r ays : first by 
parable, then by precept ; the parable giving more emphasis 
to the precept, and the precept more point to the parable. 

It is not unusual in those hot countries to journey in 
the night, thus avoiding the burning rays of the sun, and 
enjoying the refreshing coolness w r hich then prevails. The 
coming in, therefore, of a friend at midnight is quite in 
keeping with oriental usages, and supplies an important 
element of the parable. Had the friend thus surprised by 
an unexpected visit gone to his neighbour in the day time, 
to ask for u three loaves," he would easily have obtained 
them ; but going at midnight, when his house was closed, 
its doors barred, his family at rest, and rousing him from 
the, first sweet sleep of the night, was a test of friendship 
and liberality of no ordinary kind. 

To the request, then, for " three loaves," to supply the 
necessities of this traveller, the man " from within" answers, 



216 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

" Trouble me not ; the door is now shut, and my child- 
ren are with me in bed ; I cannot rise and give thee.'* 
These reasons for declining do not weigh against the 
necessities of his hungering, fainting friend, therefore he 
goes not away at this rebuff, but presses his request more 
and more with shameless earnestness, until the house- 
holder, wearied with his importunity, rises, and " gives him 
as many as he needeth." 

The key-word of this parable, then is, Importunity — an 
earnest persevering effort to obtain his request. This was 
the point to which the Saviour wished to direct the atten- 
tion of his disciples, and by the means of this parable He 
designed to enforce the duty of earnest, persevering prayer, 
and in this respect the parable is not unlike that of the 
Unjust Judge, and though there are points of difference, 
yet so far as it regards the setting forth of importunate 
prayer, they may be regarded and treated as one. 

That spirit which these parables enjoin is still further 
enforced by the precept with which our Lord follows up 
the similitude of the Midnight Friend : " And I say unto 
you, ask, and it shall be given unto you ; seek, and ye 
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For 
every one that asketh, receiveth ; and he that seeketh, 
findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." 

The end which our Lord had in view in uttering the 
parable of the Unjust Judge was, as He declares, " that 
men ought always to pray, and not to faint;" and from 
the two parables, combined, we learn these truths : First, 
That men "ought always to pray;" Secondly, That we must 



THE UNJUST JUDGE: THE IMPORTUNATE FRIEND. 217 

" not faint" at the apparent delay of God, and the pressure 
of our adversary ; Thirdly, That this prayer must be im- 
portunate ; and lastly, that instant and earnest prayer will 
always prevail, and that they who ask shall receive, they 
who seek shall find, and to those who knock the door of 
grace shall be opened. 

First. " Men ought always to pray." We usually give 
form to our petitions by praying on our knees, with closed 
eyes and solemnly uttered words ; but to pray always in 
this manner is impossible, physically and mentally ; hence 
our Lord must mean something else than the formal and 
distinctive act of prayer when he said, " Men ought always 
to pray ;" and St. Paul also must have had in his mind 
something else than set, closet petitions, when he exhorted 
the Thessalonians, "Pray without ceasing," and the Bo- 
mans to be "instant in prayer." 

Prayer is the expression of the soul's desires; but "God 
is a Spirit" and the soul is immaterial, and there is needed, 
therefore, no intervention of words or posture, no utterances 
of the tongue, no attitudes of the body, in order to have 
intercourse with Him. There may be prayer without 
words, without a closet, without the bended knee, without 
the shut eye. There may be prayer in the thronged street, 
in the busy market, in the din of the workshop, in the 
bustle of the store, amidst the books of the office, and the 
activities of professional life. When the soul is so attuned 
to God's will that there is an ever-growing harmony between 
it and God, and an ever-increasing conformity of mind and 
heart to Jesus Christ, then is that soul in a praying frame, 



218 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

ready at any moment to commune with its Heavenly 
Father; now darting out a desire, now ejaculating a peti- 
tion, now breathing out a holy wish, and now silently 
reflecting back the manifestations of Divine love, with a 
glow of emotion and tenderness of sensibility peculiarly 
affecting. He who cultivates this spirituality of mind lives 
in an atmosphere of prayer, and breathes the spirit of sup- 
plication. He is always in a praying condition. It requires 
no violent wrenching off of his mind from things seen and 
earthly, before it can be fastened on things unseen and 
eternal ; but it passes from his avocations to the Throne of 
Grace with an easiness of transition evincive of the little 
hold things on earth have upon his heart, and of the power- 
ful attraction of- the Mercy-Seat. 

It is the privilege of the Christian to have this perpetual 
intercourse with God, to have his soul thus brought into 
fellowship and communion with the adorable Saviour; and 
where we fail to enjoy it the cause is in ourselves, and not 
in God, — for His ear is ever open to our requests, being 
" more ready to hear than we to pray, and more willing to 
give than either we desire or deserve." 

In this praying state men "ought always" to keep their 
souls, because it is the only truly healthful state of the 
soul, its only truly happy state, its only true preparative 
to the unveiled enjoyment of God in heaven. 

Secondly. We must "not faint" at the apparent delay of 
God, and pressure of our adversaries. In ourselves, indeed, 
we should often faint, for our strength is weakness, and 
our strongest resolutions are but as the thread of the gossa 



THE UNJUST JUDGE: THE IMPORTUNATE FRIEND. 219 

mer around the sinewy arms of some giant passion. But 
we should "faint not," because we pray to an almighty 
God ; we go to a throne of grace from which we are never 
excluded ; we offer our prayer through the Saviour, who 
is always a prevailing intercessor; and we are aided by 
the Spirit of grace and supplication, who " helpeth our 
infirmities." 

The widow fainted not, even though she had an unjust 
judge to appeal to; and because she fainted not she gained 
her petition. And if this weak, unprotected woman, by 
the mere force of importunity, wrung from the hands of a 
judge "who feared not God, neither regarded man," redress 
of her grievance, shall not God's own children, if they faint- 
not, in due time reap, from their heavenly Father, full 
and satisfactory answers to their requests ? Can He, who 
is all justice and all love, do less for His importuning chil- 
dren than this " doomsman of wickedness" did for the 
afflicted widow ? Indeed, Christ Himself puts the question, 
"Shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry night 
and day unto Him, though He bear long with them ?" and 
He answers His own question by declaring, with marked 
emphasis, " I tell you that He will avenge them speedily." 

The "elect" of God have, as we learn both from the 
Bible and experience, " an adversary," that great adversary 
" the Devil, who goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking 
whom he may devour." This "adversary" of God and 
man is none other than that " archangel ruined," who at 
the head of legions of other fallen angels is plotting, 
though impotently, the overthrow of the moral govern- 



220 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

ment of God on earth. To this end they assault the 
Church of God and " His own elect" with peculiar virulence 
and power, level against them every fiendish weapon, 
spread out every deceiving lure, and seek to entrap their 
souls into eternal ruin. They torment the children of God 
with fears, and doubt, and spiritual darkness ; they harass 
them with innumerable temptations, and leave no point 
unassailed, from the infusing of secret unbelief to the open 
and iron-hearted persecution of the saints by fire and fagot, 
by sword and scaffold, by dungeon and death. Every 
child of God feels the enmity of this adversary, and groans 
to be delivered from his power ; some he vexes more than 
others, but all are made to bear the marks of his violence, 
and to endure his hatred and reproach. But think you 
that God will suffer this to go on unavenged ? Can he, 
as a Father, see His children prostrated by this prince of 
darkness, and not hasten to their rescue ? Can He, as a 
covenant God, behold those who have laid hold upon His 
covenant assaulted and persecuted by this great adversary, 
and not avenge them ? "I tell you," says Christ, " He 
will avenge them speedily!" and though, from God's 
" bearing long" with the machinations of this adversary, 
it may seem as if He did not regard His suffering people, 
yet there is only a seeming hiding of His power, for He 
has declared, " Vengeance is mine, I will repay ;" for when 
His people are almost faint and despairing, then shall He 
arise to judgment, and making bare His arm, shall put His 
hand on the throat of His enemies. This was proved in 
the destruction of Jerusalem, when those who had cried 



THE UNJUST JUDGE: THE IMPORTUNATE FRIEND.22l 

out concerning Jesus, " Crucify Him ! Crucify Him !" 
coupled with the horrid imprecation, " His blood be upon 
us and on our children," and who had visited their wrath 
upon the first Christians, were suddenly shut up within 
the walls of the city, and subjected to a series of trials, and 
sufferings, and deaths till then unheard of in the annals 
of retributive vengeance. 

In every age since, not a persecution of the Church has 
existed which has not been followed by the avenging curse 
of God. Nay, further, not a leader or originator of any 
of the great persecutions which have been directed against 
Christianity in its first planting among the nations, or in 
its subsequent revivals, who has not been made " to drink 
of the wine-cup of the wrath of God." Collect the biogra- 
phies of all the sword-armed or torch-bearing antagonists 
of the Church, whether you find them among Eoman 
emperors or Roman pontiffs ; whether among Gallic 
princes or Gallic cardinals ; whether among Spanish kings 
or Spanish inquisitors ; whether among English sovereigns 
or English prelates, and you shall find that all have expe- 
rienced the vengeance of Almighty God. 

There is scarce an exception to this remark, from the 
time of Pontius Pilate, who, like Judas, " went out and 
hanged himself," and Herod Agrippa, who was eaten up of 
worms and died ; down to the imbecile Charles IX., before 
whose crazed vision the bloody scenes of St. Bartholomew's 
day ever glared its spectral horrors, and, like the ghost of 
Banquo before Macbeth, would not "down at his bidding;" 
or Mary of England, the "bloody Mary," who reigned amidst 



222 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

rebellions, and died amidst the taunts and triumphs of her 
hating subjects. It is a truth written in God's Word, " He 
will avenge his elect!" it is a truth written on the breast- 
plate of God's justice, "He will avenge them speedily;" 
it is a truth that all history reiterates and confirms, " Je- 
hovah shall tread down His enemies ;" and so will it ever be 
unto the end of the world. God often " bears long" with 
sinners in order to test the faith of His people, and to show 
to the world how grievously men will sin if left for a season 
to themselves, but when his disciplinary course is over, his 
punitive begins, and there is no escaping out of. His 
hands. 

Thirdly. We learn from these parables that Christ re- 
quires earnest and importunate prayer. A few formal 
phrases, a few languid petitions, a few ascriptions of 
praise, and a few acknowledgments of mercies, are not the 
kind of prayers which are pleasing to God. He requires 
deep-felt, heart prayers, the wellings up of desires from 
souls that feel their sin and their need of a Saviour, and 
that burn with love and zeal. 

It is not "eloquent prayers," elaborately carved and 
polished by the tools of rhetoric, for ears refined, that are 
pleasing to God. It is not an harangue addressed to men 
under the form of prayer to God, that He approves ; neither 
is it " much speaking," or " vain repetitions,''' that engage 
His attention. Do you wish to praj^ aright? go to God as 
a sinful child, go to Him as your Father, reconciled by the 
death of His Son, go in faith and hope, in love and adora- 
tion ; tell Him your fears, your trials, your doubts, your 



THE UNJUST. JUDGE : THE IMPORTUNATE FRIEND.223 

sins ; unburden your soul at the gate of his ear ; go with a 
broken and a contrite heart, looking only for acceptance in 
and through the merits and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and 
you shall assuredly be heard, for the word of His promise 
is, " Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, believing, ye 
shall receive," and " Him that cometh unto me I will in no 
wise cast out." 

Fourthly. Instant and earnest prayer will always pre- 
vail. 

To use in part the words of another, the widow was a 
stranger, not at all related to the judge ; but Christians are 
" God's elect," His favoured, His " peculiar people." The 
unjust judge was not interested in granting her petition ; 
but God's honour and truth is concerned in relieving the 
wants of His people. There was little hope of prevailing 
with such a merciless and unjust judge ; but we address a 
loving and compassionate Father. The widow, moreover, 
had none to intercede for her ; but " we have an advocate 
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." She was in 
danger of irritating the judge by her entreaties ; but the 
more importunate we are the more is God pleased, for "the 
prayer of the upright," says Solomon, "is His delight." 
She, notwithstanding all her difficulties, obtained her 
request ; how much more shall we, who, in lieu of difficul- 
ties, have such abundant encouragements ! 

The same line of argument and the same inferences can 
be drawn from the parable of the Friend at Midnight, 
though we need not stop to recapitulate them here. 



224 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

To unfold fully the encouragements which we have to 
importunate prayer, would require a volume rather than a 
page. We find them in the attributes of God ; in the cove- 
nant made with Christ ; in the manifold promises of His 
holy Word ; in the recorded instances of its success, as in 
the cases of Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Daniel, and 
Paul ; and in our own experience of God's faithfulness and 
truth, in reference to every earnest cry which we have 
uttered in His ear. 

In order to the putting forth of this earnest importuning 
prayer there is needed more " faith on the earth." Faith 
is the essential basis of all prevailing prayer. There is no 
acceptable prayer without it. Our prayers will be fervent 
and effectual, just in proportion to the strength and vitality 
of our faith. If we have but a faint belief in God's 
government and care ; if we have but little trust in Jesus 
Christ, as our only Saviour ; if we believe but in part the 
full and free promises of grace; and if, instead of the 
manly, vigorous walk of faith, we take the tottering steps 
of an infantile belief, then will our prayers be weak, inef- 
fectual, unedifying. But if we cling to God's Word with 
unrelaxing tenacity; if we yield ourselves up to Christ 
in undoubting confidence; if we hold fast the precious 
promises, and, steadying ourselves by the staff of hope, 
walk with firm step in the pathway of the just, then shall 
we reap the rich results of our devotions. Our prayers will 
be heard, will be answered ; and blessings uncounted, 
unmerited, and unspeakable in richness and in glory, will 
descend upon our souls. 



THE UNJUST JUDGE: THE IMPORTUNATE FRIEND. 225 

Nor should our prayers be confined to our own needs 
alone, for we find in the parable of the Importunate Friend 
a great incentive to intercessory prayer for others. The 
poor widow pleaded for herself; her own wrongs, her own 
necessities urged her to continually press her suit : but in 
the other parable, the one who came to borrow bread of his 
friend did not ask it for himself, but for a traveller who 
had unexpectedly presented himself at his door. His whole 
importunity was in behalf of another's necessities, not his 
own ; and he continued pleading at that midnight hour, 
and before that bolted door, until he gained his request. 

While, therefore, we should, like the widow, plead with 
unrelaxing earnestness for our own spiritual needs, we 
should likewise present importunate supplications to 
Almighty God in behalf of those whom His providence 
has placed under our care, those near and dear to us by 
the ties of consanguinity or affection. The promise is not, 
Ask for yourselves only, and ye shall receive ; seek*for your- 
selves alone, and ye shall find; knock only for personal 
admittance at the door of heaven, and it shall be opened ; 
but it runs in this broad language : " Whatsoever ye shall 
ask in my name, believing, ye shall receive." " Verily I say 
unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touch- 
ing any thing, it shall be done for them of my Father 
which is in Heaven." How often do we find in the narra- 
tive of our Saviour's miracles, that He wrought special 
deeds of mercy upon persons brought to Him by others, 
and because of the faith of those who brought them ! 

The man who was let down on a bed before Him 
15 



226 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

through the broken-up roof of the house, was healed 
because of the faith of those who had borne him to Jesus. 
The servant of the Capernaum centurion, the daughter of 
the Syrophoenician woman, and many other cases, were 
each healed by Jesus because of the faith of those who 
applied to Him for aid and favour. 

The preceptive part of Scripture sustains the truth thus 
taught by the parables and the miracles of Jesus. St. 
Paul begs an interest in the prayers of his fellow Christ- 
ians. He told the Corinthians that they had helped to 
deliver him from dangers through their prayers ; he assured 
the Philippians that he knew that his afflictions would 
" turn to his salvation through their prayers." He often 
speaks of remembering others in his prayers, and St. James 
distinctly urges, "Pray one for another." Intercessory 
prayer for each other is then the plain and bounden duty 
of the children of God; they should come with boldness to 
the Throne of Grace ; they should plead the necessities of 
their friends with the importunity of that midnight house- 
holder ; they should faint not in their application, even 
though at first God seems to say, " I cannot rise and give 
thee." Pray on ; God will hear, will arise, will open to 
you the windows of heaven, and give you, not "three 
loaves" merely, but will rain down upon your soul and the 
souls of those for whom you intercede, " heavenly manna," 
that " angels' bread," which shall strengthen and sustain 
both you and them, until you enter the promised land 
above. 




5*r 



dfe 




:B)RflEIMa 



% pitMt fektftmitu 



THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 

' There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round 
about, and digged a wine-press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husband- 
men, and went into a far country. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he 
sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And 
the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned 
another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first : and they did unto 
them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reve- 
rence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, 
This is the heir ; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And 
they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord 
therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen ? They 
say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his 
vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. 
Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the 
builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner : this is the Lord's 
doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes ? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom 
of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits 
thereof. And whosoever shall fail on this stone shall be broken : but on whomso- 
ever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." Matt. xxi. 33-44. 

"A certain man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a 
place for the wine-fat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went 
into a far country. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that 
he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. And they 
caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto 
them another servant ; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, 
and sent him away shamefully handled. And again he sent another; and him 
they killed, and many others ; beating some, and killing some. Having yet there- 
fore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will 
reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the 
heir: come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, 

229 



230 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. What shall therefore the lord 
of the vineyard do ? He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the 
vineyard unto others. And have ye not read this Scripture, The stone which the 
builders rejected is become the head of the corner : this was the Lord's doing, and 
it is marvellous in our eyes ? And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the 
people ; for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them : and they left 
him, and went their way." Mark xii. 1-12. 

"A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went 
into a far country for a long time. And at the season he sent a servant to the 
husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard : but the hus- 
bandmen beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent another servant: 
and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. 
And again he sent a third : and they wounded him also, and cast him out. Then 
said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do ? I will send my beloved son : it 
may be they will reverence him when they see him. But when the husbandmen 
saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir : come, let us 
kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard, 
and killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them ? He 
shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. 
And when they heard it, they said, God forbid." Luke xx. 9-16. 

THERE are two aspects under which this parable may 
be viewed : one as it respects the Jews ; the other as 
it regards the world at large. It was delivered in the 
court of the temple, to the chief priests and scribes who 
had gathered around Jesus to cavil at His words; and just 
after His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. 

The Jewish application of this parable is evident from 
collateral Scripture and historical facts, as will appear from 
a very brief analysis. The "certain man," or "house- 
holder," as Matthew expresses it, is God ; and the " vine- 
yard" is the Jewish Church. Under the appellation of a 
vineyard, David, Jeremiah, and Isaiah speak of their 
nation ; and there is much show of truth in the supposition 



THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 23l 

that our Lord, when he framed this parable, alluded to 
the words of Isaiah, " For the vineyard of the Lord of 
Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His 
pleasant plant; and He looked for judgment, but behold 
oppression ; for righteousness, but behold a cry." 

The "husbandmen" to whom he let it out were the 
priests and Levites and scribes, to whom were committed 
the moral and religious culture of the nation. The going 
" into a far country," means in the original that He left 
them for a time, which indeed was done, when the Sheki- 
neh, the emblem of His glory, was removed from them. 
The sending of servants, " when the time of the fruit drew 
near," " to the husbandmen, that they should give him of 
the fruit of the vineyard," for the rent of the same, as was 
and is customary in Eastern countries, refers to the Pro- 
phets whom God sent to His people through the whole 
period of the Levitical dispensation, beginning with Moses, 
and ending, eleven hundred years after, with Malachi. 

The treatment which these ancient ministers received is 
well described by the conduct of the husbandmen towards 
the servants sent to receive the fruits of the vineyard; 
they "beat one," "stoned another," "killed another," 
treated one " shamefully," " wounded" another, and " cast 
him out of the vineyard." Both the Prophets Elijah and 
Daniel complain that the Jews have slain the prophets 
with the sword. Jerusalem especially had this reputation, 
as our Lord's apostrophe testifies : " 0, Jerusalem, Jerusa- 
lem, that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are 
sent unto thee;" and St. Paul, when he enumerates the 



232 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

long list of worthies in his catalogue of the faithful, in the 
eleventh chapter of Hebrews, says that they " had trial of 
cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and 
imprisonment : they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, 
were tempted, were slain with the sword \ they wandered 
about in sheepskins and goatskins ; being destitute, 
afflicted, tormented, they wandered in deserts, and in 
mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth ;" and 
though the Apostle in this passage does not design to refer 
so much to individual cases as to the great varieties of 
sufferings experienced in the persecution under Antiochus 
Epiphanes, yet we know of instances of each of these 
kinds; of torture in the history of God's ancient servants : 
for Elijah, Elisha, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Micaiah, and 
Eleazar "had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings," 
Sampson and Daniel were in " bonds and imprisonment," 
Zechariah was "stoned" in the court of the Lord's house: 
Isaiah, according to ancient tradition, was "sawn asunder" 
with a wooden saw, by order of king Manasseh ; the 
"Lord's priests" at Nob were hewn in pieces with the 
sword of Saul, and " the prophets of the Lord" were cut 
off by Jezebel, the wife of Ahab; Elijah, and Elisha, and 
John the Baptist, "wandered about in sheepskins and 
goatskins ;" and all of them were more or less " destitute, 
afflicted, tormented ;" for this was the way in which these 
wicked husbandmen, the Kings and Priests and Levites, 
treated the servants sent by God " to receive the fruit of 
the vineyard." 

After repeated messages and great forbearance, the lord 



THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 233 

of the vineyard asks, " What shall I do ?" and he resolves, 
" last of all I will send my beloved son ; it may be they 
will reverence him when they see him." And so in the 
last days of the Jewish economy, when temple, and altar, 
and synagogue, and priest, and Levite, and ritual were to 
be done away, and to give place to the higher, holier 
ministry, temple, and service of the Christian Church, 
God, who loved His vineyard notwithstanding the treat- 
ment which His servants had received, determined to 
give the Son of His bosom, "His only begotten" and 
"well beloved Son," to die for His rebellious children. 
" It may be," He says, " they will reverence my Son ;" 
the dignity of the person sent and of the person sending, 
ought to inspire a reverential regard, and reason might have 
well argued, " they will reverence my Son." This Son 
came ; He left " the glory which He had with the Father 
before the world was," the courts of heaven, the worship 
of angels, and came to the husbandmen of earth to receive 
the fruit of His vineyard. " But when the husbandmen 
saw Him they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is 
the heir 5 come, let us kill Him, that the inheritance may be 
ours." 

Yes, Christ was " the heir ;" " heir of all things," as St. 
Paul says ; heir in His mediatorial character, and by Divine 
appointment; but in order to kill this heir the chief 
priests and scribes and Pharisees "counselled together." 
It was the one vengeful purpose of their lives, the one great 
aim of their efforts, begun by Herod at the birth of this 



234 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

heir, and consummated by Pilate and Caiaphas when they 
hung Him on the accursed tree. 

In pursuance of this foul design " they cast Him out of 
the vineyard/' saying, " Away with Him," delivering Him 
into the Roman power, and with the cry, " Crucify Him ' 
crucify Him !" they " killed Him" on Calvary. 

" What, therefore," asks our Saviour, " shall the Lord of 
the vineyard do unto them ?" His audience, not as yet 
perceiving the force of the parable, replied, " He will 
miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out His 
vineyard unto other husbandmen, who shall render Him 
the fruits in their season :" thus unwittingly condemning 
themselves, and pronouncing their own well-deserved doom. 
Nor was it long before their own sentence was carried into 
execution ; for by the irruption of the Roman army into 
Judea, the vineyard of God's planting — the Holy City — 
was destroyed ; its temple, the glory of the whole earth, 
was burnt with fire ; its palaces were razed to the ground ; 
its streets were filled with ruins ; its walls were broken 
down, and with a havoc unparalleled in the history of the 
world, those husbandmen were destroyed by fire, by pesti- 
lence, by famine, and by the sword. The siege of Jerusa- 
lem began about the feast of the Passover, one of the three 
festivals when all the males of the nation were required 
" to present themselves before the Lord :" and when, there- 
fore, more than three millions of people were pent up 
within its walls. Of these, over eleven hundred thousand 
were killed, and nearly a hundred thousand others were 
carried captive into Egypt, Rome, and the colonies of 



THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 235 

Augustus. Not only was their land, the beautiful and 
almost consecrated hills of Judea, given to others, to the 
Koman, the Syrian, and the Egyptian, but their Church 
was broken up, the veil of its temple was rent in twain, its 
oblation ceased, its priesthood was abolished, its splendid 
ritual was done away, and those who were once restricted to 
the outer courts of the Jewish sanctuary, are now made to 
draw nigh unto God, even into the inner courts of a more 
glorious temple, built up by Christ of "lively stones," on 
Himself, " the chief corner stone," a temple whose only 
High Priest is the Lord of Glory, whose only sacrifice is 
" the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," whose 
incense is "the prayers of saints," whose choral service 
are the hymnings of the redeemed, whose "walls are sal- 
vation, and whose gates praise." 

This parable must have tingled upon the ears of the 
priests and Pharisees, and when they came to understand 
its import, they immediately, " the same hour, sought to 
lay hands on Him, for they perceived that He had spoken 
this parable against them ;" and had they not " feared the 
people," they would immediately have caught Him, and 
cast Him out of the vineyard, and killed Him. 

But this parable has a Christian, as well as a Jewish 
aspect. It is true that we have not killed the Prophets ; we 
have not cast the Heir of the Lord of the vineyard out of 
the vineyard ; we have not imbrued our hands in His blood ; 
but if sin is the same in all ages, as we know that it is ; 
if man's nature is the same through all generations, as 
experience proves ; then need not the sinner congratulate 



236 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

himself that he is guiltless of the blood of Jesus, for there 
lies in his heart a principle which, if fully developed, 
would lead him to do precisely what the Jews did, slay the 
prophets, and cast the Heir, even Christ, out of His vine- 
yard. Both hate God, both disobey His laws, both set 
aside His Gospel, and both say in their acts, if not in 
words, " we will not have this man to reign over us." 

Each human heart is a vineyard of God's planting, and 
through His Holy Word He has sent to you Prophets and 
Apostles to receive the fruit of your tillage; have you 
listened to the words of His servants, and returned to Him 
the hire of your vineyard ? Nay, has not Christ himself 
stood at the door of your heart knocking, and saying, 
" Rise and let me in ;" and have you not suppressed as 
much as possible all thoughts of Him, and refused Him 
entrance? And where, in the sight of God, is the differ- 
ence between the Jews and yourself? but that, in the 
former, the overt act of insult and murder was superadded 
to the inward feeling of enmity and rebellion ? 

Every one who does not receive Christ into his heart, 
does virtually " cast Him out of His vineyard." Every one 
who refuses to listen to the call of God's ministers, does in 
fact evil entreat the servants of the Lord. Every one who 
withholds from the " Householder" the wages of righteous- 
ness, does, to that extent, strive to take from Him the 
inheritance. Each one of these assertions, strong as they 
may seem, is borne out and sustained by the Word of God. 
"He that is not with me," says Christ, " is against me." 
"He that heareth you," says the same blessed Saviour to 



THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 237 

His disciples, "heareth me; and he that despiseth you, 
despiseth me ; and he that despiseth me, despiseth Him 
that sent me." " Will a man rob God ?" asks the Prophet 
Malachi; "yet ye have robbed me; but ye say, wherein 
have we robbed thee ? in tithes and offerings ;" i. e. in not 
rendering to God that which He requires ; and His require- 
ment of each human being is, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and mind, and strength, and 
thy neighbour as thyself." There is no evading this 
responsibility on the one hand, and this accountability on 
the other — the one you must bear through life, and the 
other will meet you at the bar of God ; and there you will 
be judged, not so much for what you did as for what you 
did not do ; not so much for overt acts as for the inward 
feelings of your soul towards your adorable Eedeemer. 

"We have seen, though briefly, what the Lord did to the 
wicked husbandmen ; and what shall he do to the impenitent 
now ? They give no heed to the messages He sends, yield to 
Him no revenue of praise, and in their hearts crucify His Son 
afresh, and " put Him to an open shame." They break His 
laws, reject His love, refuse His salvation, choose to "walk 
in the light of their own eyes, and after the counsels of 
their own hearts," and what shall He do to them ? The 
Apostle answers for us : " He that despised Moses' law died 
without mercy under two or three witnesses ; of how much 
sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy 
who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath 
counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanc- 
tified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit 



238 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

of Grace : for we know Him that hath said, Vengeance 
belongeth unto me ; I will recompense, saith the Lord." 

We are emphatically taught by this parable that God 
will hold us responsible for our treatment of Jesus Christ. 
He held the Jews, the husbandmen of his ancient vine- 
yard, responsible for their conduct towards his servants and 
his Son; and fearfully have they been made to endure, 
even to this day, the severity of that self-assumed curse, 
"His blood be on us and on our children;" and they will 
continue to endure it " until the fulness of the Gentiles be 
brought in." But as the sin of unbelievers now is more 
aggravated, in many of its aspects, than that of the Jews 
in the time of Christ's earthly ministry, so will God, in 
accordance with the principles of eternal justice, hold every 
living soul, who has heard of Christ, responsible for his 
conduct towards that blessed Jesus. 

Even those who take a comparatively low view of our 
moral relations to God, acknowledge that we are responsible 
for the right use of our time, our money, our talents, our 
influence ; and shall God hold us strictly accountable for 
these, in one sense, minor and inconsiderable things, and 
not make inquisition of us for our treatment of that " un- 
speakable gift," " his well-beloved Son ?" The supposition 
is impossible ! God must cease to love " His only-begotten 
Son," must ignore His law, must annul His covenant, must 
vacate His attributes, must revoke His w r ord, must change 
the very elements of His being, before He can suffer the 
rejectors of Christ and His Gospel to go unpunished ; and 
hence the force of that declaration of Christ, after His resur- 



THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 239 

rection and just prior to His ascension, " He that belie veth 
and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not 
shall be damned." 

The simple keeping of Christ out of our heart is, small 
as it may appear to worldly men, the crowning sin of the 
ungodly ; and until He is admitted there, and believed on 
by a faith that " worketh by love and purifies the soul," 
all other changes will be of no avail. We may correct this 
evil habit, and prune away that sin ; we may turn from 
debauchery to purity, from profanity to reverence, from 
covetousness to charity; we may polish our characters till 
we shall appear beautiful to ourselves and others ; we may 
even have a sentimental regard for Christ, and experience 
a sort of respect for His ordinances, and join with outward 
devotion in the praises of the sanctuary; yet, build up 
these characters as high as we may, adorn them with every 
worldly grace, set them off with every earthly virtue, un- 
less Christ is formed in our hearts the hope of glory, they 
are nothing "but whited sepulchres, which, indeed, appear 
beautiful outward, but within are full of dead bones and 
all uncleanness." 

On the other hand, no matter what may have been our 
former course, no matter what the turpitude of our cha- 
racter, though our sins be black as midnight, and numberless 
as the stars, and gross as lust itself; yet, if we now repent 
and open the door to Christ, and receive Him into our 
hearts in the fulness of a faith that trusts in Him alone, 
and will " make mention of His righteousness only," all will 
be well : " though your sins be as scarlet, they shall become 



240 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

as snow ; and though they be red like crimson, they shall 
be as wool ;" for this blessed Jesus had declared, " Him 
that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." 

Keep, then, this "beloved Son" no longer out of the 
vineyard of your heart, but, as He stands at the door and 
knocks, let your language be, in the words of an olden 
poet — 

" No longer, Master, shalt thou knock to me ; 
Once more I feel thy need. Oh, enter in, 
As my proud heart forsakes its idol sin, 
And contrite grown, now listening waits for Thee. 
I know that I have turned a heavy ear 
Unto thy gentle knocking ; sometimes cried 
With a rough voice, Why this persisting here ? 
Go Thou thy way, and keep the outer side. 
This have I said to Thee, who for me died ! 
But, Master ! I repent ; come Thou an ear, 
And by the love Thou hast borne me alway, 
Let me forgiven be, and sanctified; 
And henceforth humbly serve Thee and obey : 
Oh! Master, enter; even wldle I pray." 



% irtte. 



16 



THE SOWEE. 

"Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by 
the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up : some fell upon stony 
places, where they had not much earth : and forthwith they sprung up, because 
they had no deepness of earth : and when the sun was up, they were scorched ; 
and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns ; 
and the thorns sprung up and choked them : but others fell into good ground, and 
brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold." 

Matt. xiii. 3-8. 

" Hearken ; Behold, there went out a sower to sow. And it came to pass, as he 
sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. 
And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth ; and immediately it 
spi-ang up, because it had no depth of earth : but when the sun was up, it was 
scorched ; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among 
thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other 
fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased ; and brought 
forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundred." Makk iv. 3-8. 

" A sower went out to sow his seed : and as he sowed, some fell by the way side ; 
and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon 
a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked 
moisture. And some fell among thorns ; and the thorns sprang up with it, and 
choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit a hundred 
fold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let 
him hear." Luke viii. 6-8. 

" Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word 
of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and 
catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed 

243 



244 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

by the way side. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is ho 
that heai'eth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it ; yet hath he not root in 
himself, but dureth for a while : for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because 
of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns 
is he that heareth the word ; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of 
riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed 
into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it ; which also 
beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." 

Matt. xiii. 18-23. 

" The sower soweth the word. And these are they by the way side, where the 
word is sown ; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh 
away the word that was sown in their hearts. And these are they likewise which 
are sown on stony ground ; who, when they have heard the word, immediately 
receive it with gladness ; and have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a 
time : afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, imme- 
diately they are offended. And these are they which are sown among thorns ; such 
as hear the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and 
the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. 
And these are they which are sown on good ground ; such as hear the word, and 
receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.'* 

Mark iv. 14-20. 

" Now the parable is this : The seed is the word of God. Those by the way side 
are they that hear ; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their 
hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they, which, 
when they hear, receive the word with joy ; and these have no root, which for a 
while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among 
thorns are they, which when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares 
and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on 
the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the 
word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience." Luke viii. 11-15. 

THE many mighty works which our Saviour did in and 
around Capernaum, drew together large multitudes to 
see and hear Him. Some, like the Scribes, and Pharisees, 
and Herodians, mingled with His audience "to entangle Him 
in His talk;" others came to bring their maimed or dis- 



THE SOWER. 245 

eased friends to be healed ; others, impelled by curiosity, 
grouped around Him to see the wondrous miracles which 
He performed : while few assembled to listen to His words 
of heavenly wisdom, or to be instructed in the things con- 
cerning the Kingdom of God. 

Knowing the hearts of all men, He was aware of these 
varying dispositions in His hearers, and distinguished in 
each the motive which led them to His teaching. Accord- 
ingly, He addressed to them a parable which met their 
several cases, and illustrated their different receptions of 
His truth. 

So great, however, was the crowd, that, in order to avoid 
the press, Jesus was compelled to get into a ship, and push 
out a little from the land, while His audience sat down 
upon the sea-shore ; which, gently rising from the beach, 
made a fine natural amphitheatre, where each could see 
and hear. 

How picturesque the scene which meets the eye of the 
mind ! The dense crowds of the people, mingling all 
ranks and classes ; the turbulent Galilean ; the restless 
Gadarene; the sanctimonious Pharisee, the brisk Scribe, 
the dark-browed Herodian, all clustered in waiting silence 
on the borders of the lake. To the right was the town of 
Capernaum, with its busy market and toll-booths, where 
the clay cottage of the fisherman leaned against the stone 
walls of the palace. Behind Him lay the Sea of Galilee, 
dotted with boats passing to and fro between Tiberias, 
Genesereth, Dalmanutha, and Capernaum. Around Him 
were the bronzed-faced sailors, leaning upon the tackling 



246 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

of their ship, with their nets dragging at its side; and 
there He stood, a fishing-boat His pulpit ; the sloping banks 
of Tiberias His temple; the rippling waves and rustling 
winds His choir; preaching the doctrines He had brought 
from Heaven, and speaking, " as man never spake," of the 
things which make for our eternal peace. 

But. hark ! He waves His hand to command silence ; 
the shifting multitude stand still ; the hum of voices is 
hushed, for Jesus opens His lips, and truths such as earth 
never heard before, leap from his tongue with an eloquence 
as simple and majestic as His own character. 

The truths were divine — the illustrations earthly; per- 
haps his eye at that very moment caught the form of some 
Galilean farmer, traversing his newly ploughed field, and 
casting his seed about him on the right hand and on the 
left; some falling upon the still standing thorns; some 
upon the rocky ledge ; some on the beaten footpath; and 
some into the upturned furrows; while birds hovered 
behind him to pick up the uncovered seed which lay scat- 
tered upon the rock or the wayside. Taking this scene as 
His text, He uttered the simple yet exquisite parable of 
the Sower, wherein He designed to represent the different 
soils of the human heart, and the different receptions and 
results which the seed of the Gospel meets with as it is 
sown broadcast over the world. 

Our Saviour here distinguishes several kinds of hearers 
who attend upon the Gospel ministry ; and in some one or 
other of these four classes may every man in Christendom 
find his true position. The causes of this diversity are 



THE SOWER. 247 

skilfully analyzed, and the results of such kinds of hearing 
are distinctly classified in his exposition of the parable, 
which, in answer to their request, He subsequently made 
to His disciples. 

Let us, then, as little children, sit at the feet of Jesus, 
while he unfolds to us this beautiful parable. His mild eye 
invites inquiry, and we look up and ask, " Lord, who are 
meant by the wayside hearers ?" He replies, " When any 
one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth 
it not, then comet h the wicked one, and catcheth away 
that which was sown in his heart. This is he which 
received seed by the wayside." 

The peculiar wording of the parable, as recorded by St. 
Luke, intimates a subdivision of this class of wayside 
hearers into the indifferent, who allow the fowls of the air 
to pick up and devour the seed ; and the infidels, who treat 
it with contempt and tread it under foot. Of this latter 
class we shall not speak, as none will probably read these 
pages ; of the former, " the indifferent," we desire to give a 
few marks and warnings. 

The wayside is a public thoroughfare, beaten smooth and 
hardened by the feet of travellers, so that seed dropped 
there cannot sink in, but is speedily picked up by the birds, 
or trodden down by men. 

Of many a human heart may it be said, it is a wayside, 
where all thoughts travel; where evil imaginations, and 
sinful feelings, and corrupt desires meet and exchange salu- 
tations ; where the " lusts of the eye" stand peering at the 
corners of the street ; where the " lusts of the flesh" look 



248 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

in at the windows of her house, " which is the way to hell, 
going down to the chambers of death ;" where the " pride 
of life" flaunts its train and trappings, that it may excite 
the buzz of admiration, or the homage of the vulgar. The 
heart of such a man is trodden down and made hard like 
a wayside, by overrunning thoughts and sins. When he 
enters the house of God, his heart is thronged with evil 
imaginations ; when he bows in prayer, his spirit prays 
not ; when he stands up to sing God's praise, his soul only 
sends back echoes of earthly ditties ; and when the minis- 
ter sows broadcast " the seed of the word," it falls upon 
his affections as upon a wayside, to be either trodden under 
foot by negligence, or else picked up by the evil one, who 
cometh like the fowls of the air to snatch away the newly 
dropped grain of gospel grace. How many ostensible wor- 
shippers of God there are who, Sabbath after Sabbath, sit 
under the droppings of the Sanctuary, and yet heed them 
not, because of the pre-occupancy of their thoughts and 
affections by the great adversary of souls ! The word 
reaches only the outward ear, it never vibrates on the 
tympanum of the soul. On these wayside hearers, the 
word of God has no effect at all, and herein they differ 
from the three remaining classes, in one of which it has at 
least a momentary effect ; in another it has an imperfect 
effect ; and in the last a good and productive result. But on 
this class it is entirely devoid of benefit, Once their hearts 
were susceptible and tender; once they were stirred 
with the story of a Saviour's love and death ; or trembled 
at the threatenings of a sin-hating God. Whence then 



THE SOWER. 249 

this change? Whence this stony-heartedness, this indu- 
rated wayside soul ? They have resisted again and again 
the strivings of the Spirit ; they have stifled the oft-recur- 
ring convictions of sin; they have not sought to under- 
stand the truth — they have even affected to disbelieve it ; 
they have allowed other and worldly impressions to over- 
power their minds, and have yielded to the hostile influ- 
ences of sin, which, like hovering birds, have waited to 
catch up and bear away the seed as fast as it fell upon 
their hearts. This course, persisted in for a series of years, 
while, at the same time, all the outward duties of life, and 
all the external requirements of religion, have been per- 
haps attended to, has conspired to make them gospel- 
hardened, and no pleadings of Divine love can rouse them, 
no thunders of Sinai break up their indifference. 

The one prominent characteristic here is heedlessness — a 
perfect inattention to truth, a complete negligence of the 
means of grace, a continued carelessness concerning their 
souls, and a total thoughtlessness about God, and Christ, 
and the Holy Ghost. Such a process inevitably lays waste 
the soil of the heart, beats it down, hardens it, and makes 
it barren of all spiritual life. 

Of all mournful spectacles, this is among the most 
mournful; for, combined with a seeming respect for the 
Gospel, and a high-toned morality, and an honourable dis- 
charge of life's duties, there is a wilful resistance to the 
Holy Ghost ; a deliberate rejection of the blessed Saviour ; 
a hardened impenitence towards Almighty God ; and for 
such men, though they may flourish on earth "like a green 



250 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

bay tree/' there is reserved the fearful and eternal punish- 
ment of an insulted God. 

But our inquiring glance is again directed to the Saviour, 
and we ask, " Lord, who are designated by the stony-ground 
hearers ?" " They are those," he replies, "who, when they 
have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness, 
and have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a 
time ; afterward when affliction or persecution ariseth be- 
cause of the word, immediately they are. offended, and so 
fall away." The several Evangelists, in recording this 
parable, have a slight variation here : St. Matthew says, 
"stony places," St. Mark, "stony ground," St. Luke, 
" rock." The idea designed to be conveyed by each is, how- 
ever, one and the same, viz., a rock with a superficial 
covering of earth, just enough to fructify the seed, and give 
it a temporary germination, not enough to allow it deep- 
ness of root, and consequent permanence and fruit. So 
there are many hearts which are, indeed, stony, but which 
are yet coated over with a thin layer of sensibilities and 
emotions, just enough of the soil of goodness to start into 
vegetation the seed of the word, but not enough to give it 
depth of root or perfectness of growth. 

A great multitude of those who attend the ordinances 
of grace have delicate and excitable natures : their minds 
are, to a certain extent, interested, their imaginations are 
pleased, their sensibilities are touched, and, at times, they 
seem powerfully affected by the truth ; their feelings are all 
quickened into excitement, they listen with intense interest, 
tears start to their eyes at the story of the Saviour's love 



THE SOWER. 251 

and death ; they resolve to break off from their sins, and 
turn to God, to abandon their evil companions, and to unite 
themselves with the Church of Christ ; the seed has fallen 
upon the thin soil, it has taken root, but ere long some gay 
associate, some irreligious jester, some scheme of pleasure, 
or some plan of business, calls off their minds, and the seed 
which began to germinate so rapidly for good, perishes as 
soon as the hot sun of persecution is up, because "it has 
no deepness of earth." 

Much of the religion of the world is the product of mere 
sensibility, acted upon by an excited imagination; it is a 
piety springing up from the thin soil of morality, that lies 
upon the top of man's rock-like heart. 

Such " stony-ground hearers" may, for some time, appear 
well, especially if the seed has fallen into some cleft of 
amiability ; but let persecutions arise, let tribulations sweep 
over the Church, and their slender stalks of grace are 
uprooted, and lie withered and destroyed. Or let such be 
exposed only to the minor persecutions of ungodly friends 
and relatives, let them be ridiculed and contemned, let 
them be avoided and neglected, let the tribulations through 
which every child of God must pass as he travels heaven- 
ward, come upon them, and "they endure but for a time," 
being soon " offended" at a religion which exposes them to 
such trials ; and, rather than bear the taunts of men, they 
dare the frowns of God, and so return to the world which 
they once promised to renounce. 

In the wayside hearers the seed is caught up by the 
wicked one; in the stony-ground hearers the seed takes 



252 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

root, springs up, and is then -wilted by the scorching sun. 
In the one case Satan "catcheth away that which was 
sown, lest they should believe and be saved ;" in the other 
case he brings to bear outward and inward trials consequent 
on a reception of the truth, compared here to the scorching 
rays of the sun, or to the burning desert wind, which began 
to blow when the sun was up. "As that heat, had the 
plant been rooted deeply enough, would have furthered its 
growth and hastened its ripening ; so these tribulations 
would have furthered the growth in grace of the true 
Christian, and ripened him for heaven. But, as the heat 
scorches the blade which has 'no deepness of earth' and 
has sprung up on shallow ground, so the troubles and afflic- 
tions which would have strengthened a true faith, cause a 
faith which was merely temporary to fail." So, having no 
"root in himself," or inward root, he "but dureth for a 
while," "and in time of temptation falls away." 

There is great emphasis in the words, " having no root 
in himself." Such persons have no deeply rooted convic- 
tions of sin, no deeply rooted sense of the need of a Saviour, 
no deeply rooted resolves of abandonment of their iniquities, 
no deeply rooted faith in the Lord Jesus, no deeply rooted 
principles of a Christian life. And where these radical 
elements are wanting, there all will be loose, shifting, and 
superficial. Only those who are rooted and grounded in 
Christ, whose hope, whose faith, whose love, whose joy, like 
so many roots, strike down deep into the gospel soif, and 
twine around the very heart of Jesus, drawing thence their 
(ife-sap, and circulating it through all the arteries of the 



THE SOWER. 253 

soul, can bear the storms of adversity, the sun of persecu- 
tion, and so endure unto the end. 

Beware against trusting to these shallow impressions; 
beware of this mere surface religion; beware of these 
slight and transient resolves of reform, which, like " the 
morning cloud" and " the early dew," soon vanish away. 

But listen ! Christ is describing the thorny-ground 
hearers, and says they are such " as hear the word, and the 
cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the 
lust of other things entering in, choke the word, and it 
becometh unfruitful." 

Here we have a good soil, and depth of soil, but a soil in 
which are already planted the germs or roots of evil. Con- 
sequently, when the seed of the word is sown in it, it springs 
up indeed, but the thorns spring up with it and choke it. 
so that it " becometh unfruitful." 

This a*pplies to the nominal members of the church of 
Christ : " Those who do not quite cast off their profession, 
and yet come short of any saving benefit by it ; the good 
they gain by the word being insensibly overcome and over- 
borne by the things of this world." 

This, then, is the picture of one in whose heart grace is 
struggling for existence against the cares of this world, the 
deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things. The 
originals of this portrait are to be found in every Sabbath 
congregation. They are punctual in their accustomed 
place in the house of prayer; they maintain a devout 
appearance ; the seed is received into their hearts, it takes 
root, it springs up, but alas ! side by side with the upshoot- 



254 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

ing blade of grace is the choking thorn-stalk, drawing its 
life-sap from the same soil, and by its speedier, ranker 
growth impoverishing that soil to the damage and sterility 
of the tender sproutings of the good seed. 

Instead of pausing at the first appearance of these 
thorns, and plucking them up by the roots; instead of 
bestowing a careful husbandry upon the soil, watching the 
incast seed, and rooting up everything that would choke 
its growth; they suffered the operations of business, the 
plans of wealth, the schemes of ambition, the love of feast- 
ings, parties, amusements, and the cares and anxieties of 
life,, to grow up unchecked, until they overtopped the plants 
of grace, sucked out the strength of the affections, impo- 
verished the soul, and left the good seed to become choked, 
and " bring no fruit to perfection." 

Several things are mentioned here as choking the work 
of grace in the heart, — 1. The cares of this world, viz., 
those feverish anxieties, active energies, fruitful plans, 
fretting worriments, perplexing aims, connected with pro- 
viding for the wants of our worldly existence, everything 
in fine that hinges upon the question, " What shall we eat, 
and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be 
clothed?" These cares must necessarily take up a large 
portion of our time. Our physical necessities, our social 
relations, our public responsibilities demand much and 
earnest attention ; and inattention to them is sinful, and 
directly violates the precepts of the Bible. 

The curse is upon the earth, and the brow of man must 
sweat with labour to force from it a precarious subsistence. 



THE SOWER. 255 

All this is granted ; but because these duties of self-support 
and family support are so important, shall we make them 
paramount? Because we must live on this earth a little 
while, shall we adopt the epicurean maxim, "let us eat 
and drink, for to-morrow we die," and centre all the inter- 
ests of life in a mere animal existence ? Is the body alone 
to engage attention ? Have we no higher aims than what 
centre in flesh and blood? Here then lies the defect in 
this class of thorny-ground hearers — they do not keep the 
things of time and sense in subordination to things spiritual 
and eternal. They do not regard the wants of the soul 
and its care as the first object to be attended to ; watching 
against whatever encroaches on it, or is detrimental to its 
interests : but, on the contrary, are so careful of the inter- 
ests of business and daily life, that they check even the 
sproutings of grace itself, lest it should interfere with suc- 
cess in worldly schemes. Religion will never prevent a 
due attention to legitimate business and necessary cares of 
this life ; and these, on the other hand, will never interfere, 
when duly regulated with the strict performance of our 
religious duties. The moment that the cares of this life, 
be they what they may, crowd out humble, frequent, heart- 
felt prayer, or make distasteful the reading of God's Word, 
or irksome the duties and services of the Christian's daily 
life, or unprofitable the hours and employments of the 
holy Sabbath, that moment must the man take his stand, 
and either root out the thorns, or suffer the thorns to choke 
the soul. 

2. Another enemy of the Christian life is found in " the 



256 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering 
in." The deceitfulness of riches prepares the way for a 
whole retinue of soul-strangling lusts. Observe, here, it is 
not riches, but the deceitfulness of riches. Riches them- 
selves are God's gift — are valuable in their legitimate use ; 
but they become deceitful when we put our confidence in 
them, rest our happiness in them, trust our hopes to them, 
and regard them as the chief good of our existence. 

" They that will be rich," says St. Paul, " fall into tempt- 
ation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, 
which drown men in destruction and perdition." How 
earnestly should we take heed to a warning so solemn and 
so awful as this ! That riches are deceitful we all know ; 
they promise much comfort, but he who has the most 
money has the least enjoyment of it. They cannot heal 
disease; they cannot ward off evils; they cannot restore 
the unbalanced mind; they cannot heal family feuds; 
they cannot give peace to the burdened conscience ; they 
cannot purchase an entrance into Heaven. They take to 
themselves wings and fly away ; the tempest wastes them, 
the fire burns them, the ocean wrecks them; they are 
yours to-day, to-morrow you may but clutch at their 
shadow. Yet, though we assent to these truths, the great 
aim of the majority is to get rich ; and when that desire 
seizes upon the soul, like Aaron's rod, it swallows up all 
other aims, and becomes the ruling passion. Then the 
labour is to get money ; then is heard the horse-leech cry 
of avarice, " give ! give !" Then are the sympathies for 
the poor, and the sensibilities to sorrow, seared, lest gold 



THE SOWER. 257 

should ooze out through those tender channels. Then is 
mammon erected into an idol, and worshipped with more 
than Eastern devotion. Then is the man consecrated to 
lucre, " filthy lucre " and he takes more delight in the 
company of Bunyan's Mr. Muck-rake, talking of gains and 
bargains, than in associating with angels, communing about 
God and Heaven. " How hardly," says Christ, " shall they 
that have riches enter into the kingdom of Heaven !" It 
is a fearful thing when the lust of wealth gets headway in 
the soul. It must be narrowly watched, immediately 
checked : for if we do not guide our wealth into channels 
of benevolence, and baptize it for Christ and His Church, 
it will drive us into spiritual unfruitfulness, and ruin our 
immortal souls. 

Especially in these days is this warning needed. The 
vast increase of the precious metals by the discoveries in 
Australia and California; the remarkable unfoldings of 
mercantile and commercial wealth through the many new 
avenues of trade and the use of a steam marine ; the rapid 
development of the agricultural and industrial resources 
of our country by the building of railroads, canals, tele- 
graphs; the wonderful stimulus imparted to all branches 
of trade and all the pursuits of men, by the inventions and 
science and energy of the present century, have had, in 
some respects, a very sad moral influence, and have done 
much to keep the Church in a comparatively lethargic state. 
Everything, now, is excitement, hurry ; the long-established 
methods of trade are found too slow and quiet ; dashing 
operations, bold schemes, hazardous adventures are rife on 
17 



258. THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

every side. The game of business is deeply, and very sel- 
dom fairly, played. Young men are inveigled into courses 
that, a few years ago, would have been denounced with 
horror. Clerks are taught the tricks of trade and the arti- 
fices of decoying, to the utter destruction of their moral 
sensibilities ; and consequent upon this, are habits of waste- 
ful expenditure, of dissipation, of dishonesty, of rash specu- 
lation, of ruin. 

In social life, this deceitfulness of riches manifests itself 
in personal and household display : in building sumptuous 
dwellings, furnishing them with gorgeous furniture, giving 
luxurious balls and parties, keeping up a liveried equipage, 
dressing in costly garments, aiming to dazzle and outshine 
at the fashionable watering-places, an affectation of foreign 
manners, bolstered up by a smattering of foreign travel, 
picked up from Murray's Guide Books, during a three- 
months' tour in Europe. 

These things are grievous thorns, growing up in the 
heart, choking the plants of Divine grace. The man who 
yields to their influence at all soon becomes entirely ab- 
sorbed. There is so much of rivalry, of jostling, so much 
to excite and spur on effort, that a course of social extra- 
vagance, once entered upon, progresses with an ever accele- 
rating speed, until the majority are landed in bankruptcy 
and disgrace. Nor is this great evil confined to what are 
termed the upper classes. The grades of society beneath 
are ever striving to climb upwards ; and they toil up the 
rounds of the social ladder, deeming no position on it be- 
yond their reach, and ready to make any sacrifice to attain 



THE SOWER. 259 

their desire. Hence they ape the manners and habits of 
the wealthy, seek to pursue a course which will recommend 
them to their notice, and the whole burden of their daily 
toil is to secure a standing in fashionable circles. Is it 
possible, with such processes as these going on in the soul, 
for the seed to bring forth fruit ? What has the religion 
of Christ to do with such scenes of luxury, prodigality, and 
heartless sociality ? What has the Spirit of God to do with 
the struggling after rank and name and wealth that so 
occupy the heart? 

There is as much incompatibility between worldliness 
and spirituality as between fire and water. One must, of 
necessity, destroy the other. This is no new truth, though 
the present times enforce it with new emphasis. Long ago 
the Searcher of Hearts declared, "Ye cannot serve God 
and Mammon ;" "whosoever will be the friend of the world 
is the enemy of God ;" " he that is not with me is against 
'me ;" " he that taketh not up his cross and cometh after 
me, cannot be my disciple ;" " seek first the kingdom of 
God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be 
added unto you." 

You must, therefore, take your stand in this matter. If 
you prefer that your heart should bring forth thorns — fit 
only for the burning of hell — yield to the influences of the 
world, and they will spring up with rank luxuriance, and 
cover your moral nature with the brambles of iniquity. Go 
on and enjoy the pleasures of sin ; say to your soul, "take 
thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." Shut down the 
window of your heart that looks out upon the future, and 



260 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

curtain it around with the painted tapestry of present de 
lights; and then, throttling conscience and hoodwinking 
reason, cajole yourselves that all is well for time and foi 
eternity. Lull yourself with these opiates of the deceiver, 
until death shall break the spell, and you wake up, a lost 
spirit amidst eternal burnings. 

If these inevitable issues to such a course are too fearful 
for you to risk, then, in the name of Christ, and in the 
power of the Holy Ghost, and through the vouchsafed grace 
of Almighty God, set about the work of plucking up these 
thorns, and of cultivating these sproutings of the true seed. 
Address yourselves to watchfulness, and prayer, and self- 
examination, and careful culture of your souls, and, dis- 
trusting your own strength, rely only on the Divine aid, 
to enable you to labour with unrelaxing diligence and 
unsleeping vigilance in the effort to " work out your salva- 
tion with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in 
you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." 

Under these three classes, viz., the wayside hearers, the 
stony-ground hearers, the thorny-ground hearers, may be 
ranked all who sit under the ministry of the gospel, who 
are yet out of Christ. 

And here observe that the failure in each of these cases 
to bring forth fruit was not any defect in the seed sown, 
nor in the sower who scattered it, nor in the sun and rain 
and dew which visited all alike ; the difficulty was not so 
much without the man as within him. In one case there 
was no receptive power, in another there was no deepness 
of soil, and in the third there was pre-occupancy of the 



THE SOWER. 261 

giound by the rank and choking thorns. Man's ruin is in 
every instance self-produced, and the consciousness of this 
will be one of the most fearful elements of his everlasting 
woe. 

But we once more look up to our Divine teacher, and 
say, " Tell us, Lord, we beseech thee, who are the good- 
ground hearers ?" and He responds in those cheering words, 
they are those who, " in an honest and good heart, having 
heard the word, understand and keep it, and bring forth 
fruit with patience," "some an hundredfold, some sixty, 
some thirty." 

Though the Scriptures positively declare that " there is 
none that doeth good, no, not one," yet there are those, 
speaking after the manner of men, who may be said to 
have "an honest and good heart;" i. €., they receive the 
truth without questionings and disputings; they do not 
twist and cavil at the word ; they treat it honestly, and act 
upon it with simple-minded sincerity, and a desire to profit. 
Such persons, when they hear the word, give it their atten- 
tion, and hence, applying their hearts to wisdom, " under- 
stand it," recognise it as God's word, and embrace it as 
suited to their wants ; thus forming a contrast to the way- 
side hearers, who understood not the word of the Kingdom, 
and consequently did not believe it. But this under- 
standing of the truth can only result from the teaching of 
the Spirit; because "the natural man," says St. Paul, 
" receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they 
are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, 
because they are spiritually discerned." The fact, there- 



262 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

fore, of their understanding the word, proves that the Holy 
Ghost has been at work in their hearts, making them 
receptive of truth, and enlightening their minds, making 
them to comprehend the truth. 

The spirituality of this work is still further evinced by 
the additional mark mentioned by our Lord, that such 
"having heard the word, keep it;" do not allow Satan to 
" catch it away," as the birds picked up the seed dropped 
upon the wayside, but " keep it" in their memories, ponder- 
ing it over in careful, prayerful meditation ; " keep it" in 
their hearts, as the man of their council and the guide of 
their lives ; hiding it there, that they may not sin against 
God. 

There is much force in the word here translated " keep 
it." It means, to occupy, to dwell in, and in classical 
usage is applied to the "tutelary gods," who had an 
abiding place in every household; and as, among the 
heathen, no family or individual was considered safe 
without the guardianship of one or more of these tutelary 
gods dwelling in their halls or rooms, so should no 
Christian feel himself safe from the evil influences of his 
great adversary, without having the seed of the word 
occupy and dwell in his soul; not to be an occasional 
visiter, not a temporary tenant, but permanently abiding 
there in full, undisturbed possession. 

Our Christian character does not depend so much on our 
hearing as on our keeping the word. It will not benefit us 
to have it pass through the mind : it must dwell there ; be 



THE SOWER. 263 

kept there with a jealous guarding and a scrupulous care,, 
as the greatest treasure confided to our hands. 

The necessary result of this indwelling of the "good 
seed" in the " good ground" is, that it will be productive ; 
but the seed will not fructify equally in all, nor will the 
soils produce a like amount of harvest. There are 
circumstances of early education, natural disposition, social 
position, mental temperament, business relations, idiosyn- 
crasies of character, intellectual advantages, which are 
ever operating upon the soil of the heart, increasing or 
lessening its fertility; consequently some bring forth 
thirtyfold, some sixty, some a hundred. Our own expe- 
rience testifies to the truth of this. We see one Christian 
fertile in the graces of the Spirit, abundant in fruit, 
rejoicing in hope ; and another, who manifests but little 
increase, producing but small results ; but in all cases there 
is some increase. Increase is the absolute condition and 
requirement of the Christian life. This alone evidences 
that we have received the seed, that we have kept the 
seed, and that the soil is good; and w T hile the ratio of 
increase is variable, the increase itself is the necessary 
exponent of Christian vitality. 

This fruit manifests itself in two ways: first, in a 
growth in grace, whereby our hearts become more and 
more conformed to the image of God's dear Son, through 
the indwelling of the Holy Ghost; and secondly, by 
increasing efforts for the extension of the Redeemer's 
kingdom. But this inner and outer work of the soul are so 
interlaced that they cannot be separated. Where there is 



264 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

a growth of holiness in the heart, there is always found 
deeper love for Christ, and where that exists, there of 
necessity springs up a love for the souls for whom Christ 
died, and a desire to labour for and with Christ in so 
bringing men to the truth, as that our blessed Saviour 
" shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied." 

But this fruit, says our Lord, is brought forth "with 
patience." Patience is that grace which enables one to 
bear afflictions, calamities, and oppositions with constancy 
and calmness of mind, and with humble submission to 
Almighty God. It is an essential element of Christian 
character, and as such is much insisted on by the Apostles 
John, and James, and Peter, and Paul, as well as by Christ 
himself. Impatience is the mark of an unpoised mind and 
uncurbed will. It is a dangerous trait even in a worldly 
character, because it leads to rash and hasty measures, and 
produces a chafed and irritated spirit. Much more then 
must it be adverse to godliness of heart, and to all 
productive efforts in the cause of Christ. With what truth 
might the Apostle say to us as to the Hebrews, " Ye have 
need of patience !" and with what earnestness w T ould lie 
repeat to us, what he urged upon them, " run with patience 
the race set before you !" for, unless we persevere with 
unshaken steadfastness, enduring patiently the reproach 
and opposition of the world, stemming with even mind and 
submissive will the difficulties that lie before us, we cannot 
bring forth fruit, we cannot glorify God, we cannot secure 
"the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus." 

In gathering up into a few closing reflections the 



THE SOWER. 265 

teachings of this parable, we remark, first, that we are 
personally responsible for every particle of the seed of the 
word sown in our hearts; secondly, that no "wayside" 
hearer can be saved ; thirdly, that no " stony-ground" 
hearer can be saved; fourthly, that no "thorny-ground" 
hearer can be saved ; and lastly, that only the fruit-pro- 
ducing hearer can enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
In which class are you ? 



% %>mt. 



THE TARES. 

V The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his 
field ; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and 
went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then 
appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto 
him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field ? from whence then hath it tares ? 
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt 
thou then that we go and gather them up ? But he said, Nay ; lest while ye gather 
up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until 
the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye 
together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them : but gather the 
wheat into my barn." Matt. xiii. 24-30. 

"Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house ; and his disciples came 
unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He 
answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man ; 
the field is the world ; the good seed are the children of the kingdom ; but the tares 
are the children of the wicked one ; the enemy that sowed them is the devil ; the 
harvest is the end of the world ; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the 
tares are gathered and burned in the fire : so shall it be in the end of this world. 
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his king- 
dom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity ; and shall cast them into a 
furnace of fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the 
righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears 
to hear, let him hear." Matt. xiii. 36-43. 

THIS parable, like that of the Sower, is drawn from the 
walks of agriculture, and needs no explanations to 
unfold the terms used or the personages introduced. The 

269 



270 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

field, the wheat, the tares, the servants, the householder, 
the enemy sowing tares at midnight, are each intel- 
ligible to the common mind, involving no points of thought, 
or usages of life, diverse from those with which we are 
daily conversant. 

There is one peculiarity about this parable, however, 
which it has in common with that of " The Sower," viz., its 
subsequent interpretation by our Lord himself, in answer to 
the special request of His disciples. Since He, therefore, 
who uttered it, has condescended to unfold it, it is more 
glorious to follow His footsteps than to mark out any new 
path of our own. When He instructs, we have nothing to 
do but listen, practise, and obey. 

" The field," says our Saviour, "is the world ;" a thought 
so great that we are really startled at its magnitude ; and 
looking at it in its merely human aspect, as the utterance 
of a Jew, whose nation was separated from all other 
nations by theocratic institutions, which constituted them 
"a peculiar people," and who, from this national stand- 
point, regarded the Gentiles as " aliens from the common- 
wealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise," 
there is something in it morally sublime ; indicating a mind 
of vast breadth, a soul devoid of prejudice, a heart that 
expanded its affections to the circumference of earth, and 
a faith that looked upon the far off, yet certain result, with 
the calmness of anticipated triumph. 

But Christ was not a narrow-minded Jew, bound down 
by national prejudices. He was God as well as man; and 
His utterance here was the Divine annunciation of a truth 



THE TARES. 271 

brought from heaven, and by Him revealed to man. So 
that it is a prophecy as well as an assertion ; it is the 
glorious prediction of His own assured success, as well as 
the statement of an ultimate fact ; and uttered as it was in 
the day of His humiliation, with but a handful of followers, 
amidst the scorn and neglect of His own countrymen, it 
showed the God bringing the future before the eye of the 
present, with a clearness of vision and distinctness of state- 
ment which could only result from an omniscience that 
saw " the end from the beginning." 

The narrow province of Judea sufficed for the Jewish 
Church, which was only designed to be the temporary 
depository of God's law and promise, the forerunner of that 
dispensation which the Messiah, "the hope of Israel," 
should, " in the fulness of time," establish " for all nations." 
The laws and ritual of the Jewish Church absolutely pre- 
cluded it from ever becoming universal ; it was a church 
which, as a church, could only flourish in certain latitudes 
and longitudes, and contained within itself the elements 
of its own dissolution. Its great office was, to be the 
depository and keeper of revealed truth ; to prefigure 
Christ by type and ritual ; to announce His advent by an 
ever augmenting voice of prophecy ; to receive Him into 
its bosom when He appeared; and then to give place to a 
dispensation, which, rejecting the Jewish ritual and the 
Jewish boundaries, should be equally adapted to every land 
and clime, and become the sole religion of the world. In 
this world-wide field was to be sown " good seed" by " the 
Son of man." This " Son of man" is none other than 



272 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

Jesus Christ ; that being one of His peculiar titles, and by 
which He most frequently designated himself; thus rightly 
appropriating the title under which Daniel prophesied of 
the Messiah's kingdom and glory. 

" The good seed are the children of the kingdom :" i. e. 
those individuals in whom the good seed of God's word had 
so taken root and fructified as to identify themselves with 
it, in such manner that they might well be called "the 
good seed ;" not indeed in the abstract, as that which was 
sown, for as children of the kingdom they were not sown, 
but as being the fruit of that which had been sown by 
the Son of man, and which, in the parable of the Sower, 
is called "the word of God;" this, falling into "good 
ground," takes root and springs up, and develops itself into 
" children of the kingdom," who are thus, by a figure of 
speech, called the " good seed." Wherever " the word of 
God" finds lodgment in the heart and receives, through 
the agency of the Holy Ghost, fructifying power, there will 
it ever bring forth a child of the kingdom. This is its 
only and its legitimate fruit; hence, St. Peter speaks of 
Christians as "being born again, not of corruptible seed, 
but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and 
abideth for ever;" "and this," he adds, "is the word which 
by the Gospel is preached unto you." Thus the preached 
Gospel is that good seed, which, in the field of the world, 
will ever produce the children of the kingdom. It is said 
to be sown by the Son of man, because the word, which is 
the seed, " proceedeth out of His mouth," and because it is 
by His authority and commission that the blessed Gospel 



THE TARES. 273 

is preached, or scattered broadcast, throughout the world ; 
for His irrevocable promise to His ministering servants, the 
seed-sowing husbandmen of His Church, is, " Lo, I am 
with you always, even to the end of the world ;" so that, 
through all time, to all classes of people, throughout all 
the habitations of men, the ministers of the Gospel have 
the promised presence of " the Son of Man," giving 
efficiency to their sowing, fructification to the seed, and 
causing it in every part of this world-field to bring forth 
" the children of the kingdom." 

This is one, and the bright side of this parabolic picture. 
We turn with reluctance to the other, wherein we behold 
another kind of seed, another sower, and widely different 
results. 

" The Son of man," who sowed the good seed, had " an 
Enemy," here called " the Devil," who, after the wheat had 
been cast into the ground, and while the sowers slept, came 
stealthily into the field, and "sowed tares among the 
wheat, and went his way." From the Bible we learn that 
the devil is a person, not an idea. That he was once an 
angel of light — now a fallen spirit ; that he is the deceiver 
of the world, the enemy of God, the earthly antagonist of 
Jesus Christ ; that he is " the spirit that ruleth in the 
hearts of the children of disobedience ;" that he is full of 
guile, subtlety, and falsehood; that he is "a murderer from 
the beginning," and " the father of lies ;" " the accuser of 
the brethren," and " as a roaring lion walketh about seek- 
ing whom he may devour." His great aim is to thwart 
the moral purposes of God in man's creation ; which he 
18 



274 THE r ARABLES UNFOLDED. 

first attempted, and with apparent success, in the garden 
of Eden, in that fearful assault upon the faith and obedi- 
ence of Adam and Eve. But when, at the very moment 
of his seeming triumph, there was uttered the hope- 
inspiring promise, that " the seed of the woman should 
bruise the serpent's head," then were all his mighty 
energies gathered into one effort to oppose that "seed of 
the woman," even Jesus Christ, and overthrow Him and 
the kingdom which He came from heaven to establish. 
This was the one aim of all his multifarious movements 
before and at the coming of Christ ; this caused him to 
make that daring assault on Jesus himself, when the 
blessed Saviour was weak through protracted fasting, 
and unsustained by human aid, in the wilderness. This 
led him to enter into Judas to betray his master, into 
the high priests and scribes to condemn Him, into the 
people to cry out " crucify him," into Pilate to deliver Him 
to his soldiers to be hung upon the accursed tree. And 
ever since has he w r aged a relentless conflict with the Great 
Head of the Church and His ministers, and the children 
of the kingdom — being unremitting in toil, unrelaxing in 
vigilance, unsparing in deception, unblushing in effrontery, 
unscrupulous in his wiles to entrap the souls of men, and 
lead them as captives to his own abodes of eternal sorrow. 
This is that arch-enemy of God and man w T ho sowed 
" tares" in the field of the world ; and it marks the great 
wiliness of this enemy, that he sowed that kind of seed 
which, in its upspringing, would require some time to 
develop its true characters, its first appearings being so 



THE TARES. 275 

like the good grain, that only when it had taken too deep 
root to be plucked up without injuring the wheat also, 
could its real character be detected. The " tares" spoken 
of were not another kind of seed from the wheat, but of 
the same kind, only a bastard or degenerate wheat. Thus 
we find that all the grievous heresies and defections that 
have been produced in the Church are not the results of 
bald and undiluted falsehoods, but of degenerate or bastard 
truths, retaining enough of the truth to catch the conscience, 
yet using the little truth only as a means of making more 
deadly the error which it was designed to advance. 

The danger of any soul-destroying error is in proportion 
to the amount of truth which it enfolds ; the nearer the 
truth, while it yet avoids it, the more deceptive does it 
become. It is when Satan "transforms himself into an 
angel of light" that he most effectually seduces the child- 
ren of the kingdom ; and never did he come so near uttering 
the truth in its letter, and yet fail to speak it in its spirit, 
as when he thrice tempted the blessed Saviour, backing one 
of his assaults with a quotation from the Word of God. 

The ingenuity of the deceptions, and the protean shapes 
of evil which the devil assumes, are such as no unaided 
mind can either comprehend or unravel. It requires the 
aid of God's Holy Spirit to enable us, like Milton's Ithuriel, 
so to touch him with the spear of truth, under whatever 
form he may be disguised, as to cause him " to return of 
force to his own likeness, discovered and surprised.' 

As in the case of the Son of man, the seed which was 
sown was not " the children of the kingdom," but that 



276 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

which produced them ; so here, the tares scattered by the 
devil were not " the children of the wicked one," but that 
which brought them forth; those evil principles and 
thoughts, which in their germination result in men of such 
sinfulness and guilt, as well to deserve the denunciation, 
" Children of the wicked one." In this class are included 
all who are not the " children of the kingdom ;" for there are 
but these two moral families in God's household, — termed 
sometimes, " children of light," and " children of dark- 
ness ;" those who " walk by faith," and those who " walk 
by sight ;" " men of the world, who have their portion in 
this life," and men who " confess themselves to be strangers 
and pilgrims upon earth, seeking a better country, that is, a 
heavenly;" men "alive unto God," and men "dead in tres- 
passes and sins ;" the " friends," and the " enemies" of Christ. 
We may thus search through the Word of God, and though 
we find these two classes described under diverse names, 
yet we never discover any third or middle family ; a matter 
which our blessed Lord has set at rest in the most positive 
terms by saying, " He that is not with me, is against me, 
and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad." It 
is indeed a fearful thing to be one of the children of the 
wicked one ; to have such a moral paternity as only the 
devil can furnish ; to be one of his fiendish household, 
copying his example, animated by his precepts, following 
his rules, and day by day preparing for the weeping, and 
the wailing, and the gnashing of teeth, which shall be the 
portion of the children of the wicked, for ever and ever. 
In consequence of this double sowing, we find springing 



THE TARES. 277 

up in this world-field, wheat and tares ; and to the question 
of the servants of the householder, " Wilt thou then that 
we go and gather them up ?" the reply is, " Nay, lest while 
ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with 
them. Let both grow together until the harvest." In 
this answer, as we understand it, lies the real force and 
import of the parable ; which seems to have been uttered 
to show that in the visible Church of Christ on earth, 
there will ever be the bad mingled with the good, and that 
those who look for an unalloyed communion here will not 
find it until after the harvesting, " at the end of the world." 
We draw then, from this statement, these four propo- 
sitions : — 1st. That in the visible Church there is a present 
intermixture of the children of the kingdom, and the 
children of the wicked one. We use the the word Church 
here precisely as it is used in the XlXth of our Articles 
of Religion, where it says, " The visible Church of Christ 
is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure 
word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly 
ministered," &c. Here, the term visible distinguishes it 
from the invisible Church, composed of those who " are 
very members incorporate in the mystical body of 
Christ, which is the blessed company of all faithful 
people," and who are known only to God himself. The 
word men confines it to this earth, in contradistinction 
to that community of which " the whole family in 
heaven and earth is named," embracing angels and the 
spirits of the just made perfect, as well as beings still on 
earth. The word faithful restricts the term Church to 



278 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

those who believe in the Lord Jesus, and consequently 
excludes all associations of imposture — infidelity or hea- 
thenism ; and the expression " in which the pure word of 
God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered," 
&c, mark it as the Church militant, not the Church trium- 
phant; the Church warring in the wilderness this side 
Jordan, not the Church at rest beyond its swellings in the 
Canaan above. But though the visible, militant Church, 
be in general terms " a congregation of faithful men," yet 
it manifestly embraces many who have no real faith 
towards God, and no true love to Jesus Christ, and no new 
birth of the Holy Ghost. And such has been the fact 
through the entire period of the Church's history. We 
need but casually read the records of the Old and New 
Testaments to see how many there were who by hereditary 
descent, or outward profession, became members of the 
visible Church, under the Patriarchal, the Levitical, and 
the Christian dispensations, who yet had neither part nor 
lot in the blessings of the covenant of grace, because their 
heart was not right in the sight of God. 

In the band of our Lord's Apostles was a Judas; in 
the little Church of Samaria, a Simon Magus ; in the 
Church of Pergamos, those "who held the doctrines of 
Balaam ;" in the Church of Thyatira, a Jezebel-like 
woman ; in the Church of Sarclis, those whose works " had 
not been found perfect before God ;" and in the Churches 
of Rome, Corinth, Colosse, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, 
were those " who had a name indeed to live, but who yet 
were dead in trespasses and sins." And what was true 



THE TARES. 279 

then is true now. In every Gospel field we find tares 
growing up with the wheat ; in every ecclesiastical net are 
enclosed fishes good and bad ; in every fold of Christ are 
there sheep sound and tainted ; and into every ark of the 
Church, as into the ark of Noah, do there enter beasts 
clean and unclean. This is indeed a lamentable fact, and 
one that should make us walk humbly in the presence not 
only of God, but of a carping, sneering world ; and yet it 
is a fact which, in the end, both illustrates and promotes 
the glory of the grace of God : for by this state of things, 
not only are the goodness, mercy, long-suffering, forbear- 
ance, and other attributes of God more gloriously dis- 
played, than if he immediately visited sin with prompt 
punishment; but the character of His children, and 
their meetness for heaven, are greatly benefited by the 
very processes of trial and temptation through which, in 
consequence of this intermixture of good and evil, they 
are called to pass. Thomas Fuller, in the fifth book of 
his " Holy State," gives these six reasons why God permits 
the wheat and the tares to grow up together in the field 
of the Church until the harvest: — "1st. Hypocrites can 
never be severed but by Him that can search the heart. 
2dly. If men should make the separation, weak Christians 
would be counted no Christians, and those who have a 
grain of grace, under a load of imperfection, would be 
counted reprobates. 3dly. God's vessels of honour for all 
eternity not as yet appearing, but wallowing in sin, would 
be made castaways. 4th. God, by the mixture of the 
wicked with the godly, will try the patience and watchful- 



280 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

ness of his servants. 5thly. Because thereby He will 
bestow many favours on the wicked to clear His justice, 
and render them the more inexcusable. Lastly : Because 
the mixture of the wicked grieving the godly, will make 
them the more heartily pray for the day of judgment." 

The second proposition is, that the bad members of the 
Church in many respects resemble the good, but have a 
different origin and a different termination. 

The tares mentioned in the parable are probably the 
darnell or degenerate kind of wheat which, in its early 
blade, closely resembles true wheat; and the Rabbins say, 
that the tares of Palestine are like the wheat, except that 
the ears are not so large, nor the grains so many, nor the 
quality so good. So, in the Church of God, the bad or 
unsound members simulate the good in very many par- 
ticulars. Their outward profession, appearance, and par- 
ticipation of ordinances are the same. They are perhaps 
liberal in the support of church institutions, show great 
regard to the sanctuary and sacraments, go through the 
same outward round of religious duties, and thus grow 
up together until the harvest. But they differ from the 
children of the kingdom in their origin ; they have noi 
been born again by that spiritual regeneration which is 
effected by the Holy Ghost. The seeds which have sprung 
up with such semblance of goodness are tares sown by the 
wicked one, producing counterfeit graces and spurious doc- 
trines, with which multitudes rest satisfied, because at least 
it gives them an outward position in the Church of. God. 
Sometimes these seeds are received unwarily at first, and 



THE TARES. 281 

when they spring up, they look so much like the true 
wheat, that the recipients never trouble themselves to 
examine whether the resemblance continue, or whether, 
after all, it is not darnell that they are cultivating, instead 
of wheat. Many there are, who rest their salvation on the 
fact, that once they had convictions, and, as they supposed, 
conversion ; and, wresting to their own destruction the 
doctrine that man cannot fall from grace, they settle down 
their hopes upon a past experience, and say, once in grace 
always in grace, and thus grow up as rank and noxious 
tares, fit only for the burning. 

But God has not left us to uncertainty in this matter. 
Though we may be deceived about others, we have at least 
the means of detecting the falsity within ourselves. He 
has given us the proper tests and criteria by which we may 
discriminate between the good and the bad seed, so as to 
know whether or not we are the children of the kingdom, 
or the children of the wicked one. 

If we are really anxious to know the truth and the 
whole truth, as to our souls' sanctification and justification, 
we can know it by marks and evidences of that personal 
spiritual kind, beyond the art of the devil to counterfeit or 
invalidate ; for the Bible distinctly declares, " Whosoever 
doeth the will of God, shall know of the doctrine whether 
it be of God." 

The third proposition is, that no thorough separation can 
take place in this life. The command is, " Let both grow 
together until the harvest," and the reason assigned is, 
" lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the 



282 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

wheat with them." While the eve of God beholds with 
unerring certainty who are the tares and who are the 
wheat, man does not ; and were it left to him to root up the 
tares, he might leave many stalks of tares, supposing them 
to be genuine wheat, and pluck up many stalks of wheat, 
under the mistaken notion that they were tares. The terri- 
ble persecutions which have taken place between different 
sections of the Church, for the so-called purgation of the 
body ecclesiastic, afford sad examples of the way in which 
human servants, had they the power, would root up what 
they would call the " tares" in the field of the Church. 
We have great reason to bless God that He has removed 
this power from the hands of short-sighted and narrow- 
minded men. The Church has never used the extirpating 
sword but to the disgrace of its name, and to the dishonour 
of its Divine head. What Christ has commissioned the 
Church to do is, to plant and sow and cultivate with nicest 
skill the incast seed of the Word, but not to root up tares. 
This He has reserved for His commissioned angels, who, 
when sent forth, "shall gather out of His kingdom all 
things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall 
cast them into a furnace of fire ; there shall be wailing and 
gnashing of teeth." 

So far is this passage, therefore, from sanctioning perse- 
cution, it strongly, though inferentially, condemns it; it 
reserves the final decision to omniscient power, the final 
gathering to angelic reapers, ministering spirits, swayed by 
no human passions, and acting under the eye and finger of 
their Eternal King. 

The fourth and last proposition is, that both the parable 



THE TARES. 283 

and the interpretation given by our Lord, emphatically 
show, that a separation shall take place at some future day 
Whatever, then, may be the condition of the Church of 
God now, there is a day coming, when "judgment shall 
begin at the house of God." Then shall this permixtion 
of good and evil end ; then shall the tares be gathered for 
the burning and the wheat for the garner ; then shall there 
be a separation, total, complete, and for ever, of the true 
and false professors, who now grow up together in the field 
of the Church. As it is the design of another parable, 
viz., " The Draw-Net," to represent this special truth, we 
shall not dwell upon it here ; but, simply announcing the 
fact that such a separation will take place by Divine com- 
mand, under Divine direction, and for purposes of Divine 
judgment, we pass to the final result of such a severing 
of the good from the bad — first, as to the tares ; and then, 
secondly, as to the wheat. 

The " tares" are first reaped, then bound " in bundles to 
burn," then cast " into a furnace of fire," producing " wail- 
ing and gnashing of teeth" — figurative words, designed to 
show the intensity of the suffering of the wicked in the 
world to come : for it is only by terms borrowed from phy- 
sical pain, or from implements and instruments of bodily 
torture, that we can set forth the unspeakable anguish of 
soul which they shall experience who " lie down in ever- 
lasting sorrow," "where their worm dieth not, and their 
fire is not quenched." The fierce struggle of contending 
passions ; the unchecked power of evil, rising and swelling 
with tumultuous rage ; the writhings of a spirit bereft of 



284 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

every hope, and haunted by despair; the goadings of a 
conscience quickened into intense activity by the memory 
of the past ; the forebodings of an ever-increasing torment, 
waxing keener throughout eternity; the remembrance of 
what is lost — heaven, the soul, God's pardon, Christ's 
favour, everlasting bliss; and the consciousness of what 
has been self-induced — weeping and wailing and gnashing 
of teeth for ever. Oh ! this, this is the fire that ever burns 
with gnawing, but never-consuming flame. This is the 
furnace, "seven times heated" by the fuel of an ungodly 
life, in which retributive justice shall cast the unrepenting 
soul, and leave it there, to memory, to conscience, to Sa- 
tan, to despair. Well may the prophet say, " Woe unto 
the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his 
hands shall be given him." With equal truth does God 
declare, "Say unto the righteous, it shall be well with 
him, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings." Their 
condition, after the day of judgment, shall be one of splen- 
dour and rejoicing. Freed from the body of this death, 
removed from a world of sin, exempt from the temptations 
of the adversary, full of love and peace and joy, they shine 
forth in their true characters, as "children of light and of 
the day." While on earth they were " lights in the world," 
but the light was obscured by their imperfections and sins, 
it was more frequently hidden under a bushel than set on 
a candlestick ; but now, the clouds of error, of unbelief, of 
sin, have been rolled away, and, in the clear sky of heaven, 
they manifest their true character, and shine forth " as the 
sun" in the kingdom of God ; and there thej' shall shine, 
says the prophet Daniel, " for ever and ever." 



8>t* fWatft §tA 



THE MUSTAED SEED. 

" The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took 
and sowed in his field : Which indeed is the least of all seeds ; but when it is 
grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the 
air come and lodge in the branches thereof." Matt. xiii. 31, 32. 

" Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God ? or with what comparison shall 
we compare it ? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the 
earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth ; but when it is sown, it 
groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches ; 
so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it." 

Mark iv. 30-32. 

" Unto what is the kingdom of God like? And whereunto shall I resemble it? 
It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden ; 
and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the 
branches of it." Luke xiii. 18, 19. 

FEW words, but pregnant trains! The aim of our 
Saviour was to find some comparison or similitude 
that would best illustrate the outward growth and develop- 
ment of the Kingdom of God. In asking the question of 
those around him, " Unto what is the Kingdom of God 
like ? and whereunto shall I resemble it ?" He did not 
design that they should answer it, for they could not, being 
ignorant of the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven ; but by 
starting the question he excited their minds to action, 
caused them to feel more forcibly their inability to reply, 

287 



288 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

and, by stimulating their curiosity, produced a deeper 
desire to understand the nature of that kingdom of which 
Jesus spoke. When, therefore, after bending to Him their 
attentive ears, they heard Him compare it to a grain of 
mustard seed, they must for the moment have been shocked 
at the insignificance of the resembling object, so different 
from their preconceived ideas of the glory and magnifi- 
cence which they supposed would usher in the Messiah's 
reign. 

Unbiassed as we are by those temporal and national 
views of the person and reign of Christ, which blinded the 
minds of the Jews ; and looking at this Kingdom of God, 
not from a prophetic stand-point, as something yet to take 
its rise, but from an historic one, wherein we see it already 
begun, and in process ; we can see the felicity of the com- 
parison, and mark its close resemblance. 

The grain of mustard seed is indeed "the least of all 
the seeds that are sown in the earth," which produce 
ligneous stems and branches; and it was in this sense, 
doubtless, that our Lord spoke of it, — alluding rather to 
the relative size of the seed, and the developed plant, than 
to the seed in the abstract, because the seeds of poppy and 
rue are smaller than those of mustard, though the plants 
themselves never rise beyond the character of humble 
herbs, whereas the mustard seed " becometh a great tree," 
and " shooteth out great branches." 

Thus small and insignificant was the first germ of the 
Kingdom of God in its earthly manifestations. We say 
earthly manifestations, because, as it existed in the mind 



THE MUSTARD SEED. 289 

of the Triune God, it was a Divine idea, compassing at once 
all its results, and could not, therefore, be either small or 
insignificant. But on earth, how did Christ, who is Him- 
self the grain of mustard seed, out of which grew the great 
tree of Christianity, first appear ? As an infant ! wrapped 
in swaddling-bands and lying in a manger ! Could reason 
see anything in Mary's child, born in a stable, to fore- 
shadow such august results ? Certainly not. And when, 
after thirty years of obscurity, working, doubtless, the 
mean while, at the carpenter's bench with his reputed 
father, " Jesus began to teach and to preach," who saw 
in the plain Nazarene anything to indicate a greatness 
that should fill the earth with its glory? Who would 
recognise in Him the revolutionizer of the world ? Or, 
beholding Him at the beginning of His ministry, selecting 
as His disciples, — not the titled, the wealthy, the influential 
— but fishermen and tax-gatherers, ignorant and rude Ga- 
lileans, who would not have said, looking at the subject on 
mere worldly grounds, that here, surely was a great mistake, 
to intrust to such uncouth and uneducated men so great a 
treasure as the Gospel professed to be ; that, if Jesus' 
design was to make converts and popularize His doctrines, 
He should have selected well-skilled Scribes, or learned 
Pharisees, or influential Sadducees, men who, from their 
social or intellectual position, would have been treated with 
respect, and listened to with reverence ; but to call a man 
from his nets and fishing tackle, and tell him to go preach 
the Gospel ; to call another from his publican's seat and 

tax-table, and commission him to declare the whole counsel 
19 



290 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

of God . concerning man's highest and eternal interests, 
seemed to finite minds like " casting pearls before swine," 
or attempting to achieve great ends by totally inadequate 
means. And when at last, after three years, going up and 
down throughout the cities of Palestine, the founder of 
this new religion was arrested, condemned, and crucified 
like a slave, who would have supposed that his tenets 
could survive the dispersion of His disciples, and His own 
ignominious death ? Thus the life and death of Christ, in 
its human aspects, was emphatically, as to its apparent 
insignificance, a grain of mustard seed. 

Nor does the case appear to be much better after Jesus 
had ascended on high. The disciples whom He left behind 
Him had all at one time deserted Him, and were now so 
timid and so few that they all assembled in an upper room 
for fear of the Jews. The idea, humanly speaking, was 
absurd, that less than a dozen illiterate Galileans could 
overthrow the old religions of the world, and set up a new 
one, which should extend from the rising to the setting 
sun. The mind could see in it no relation between the 
insignificant cause and the desired effect. They were to 
preach the Gospel to every creature — yet could speak no 
language but their provincial tongue ; they were to disciple 
all nations to Christ — yet every one of them had lately for- 
saken Him and fled ; they were to uproot the idolatries of 
earth — yet were themselves feeble and superstitious ; they 
were to overturn the skilfully wrought schemes of human 
philosophy — yet were themselves untaught in the schools ; 
they were to conquer the world to the sceptre of Jesus — yet 



THE MUSTARD SEED. 291 

now shut themselves up in an upper room " for fear of the 
Jews." Great names, literary honours, the patronage of 
kings, the favour of the people, they did not possess. To 
mortal view it was the veriest absurdity ; to commission 
poor, illiterate, unpolished men to convert the world, then 
just passing from the Augustan age of its glory, to the 
faith of the son of a carpenter in Nazareth, whom the 
Jews had cast out of their synagogues, and the Romans 
crucified as a malefactor ! 

The Stoics, with Zeno at their head, had tried to reform 
the world, and failed ; Socrates, and Plato, and the Acade- 
micians had attempted it, with no better success ; Aristotle 
and the Peripatetic school had aimed at it, and met the 
same signal defeat : how preposterous, then, to send out 
eleven fishermen, artisans, and publicans, without books, 
without money, without arms, without popular favour, and 
expect them to succeed where the proudest wisdom and 
the loftiest philosophy had signally failed ! 

Such was the small, and, in its earthly appearings, insig- 
nificant aspect of the beginnings of the Christian religion. 
How like a grain of mustard seed in its littleness and 
apparent worthlessness ! But from this " least of all 
seeds," we turn to behold its results in the great tree, 
shooting out great branches, gathering the fowls of the air 
under its shadow. In warm climates the mustard seed 
grows to an almost incredible size. The Jerusalem Talmud 
says, at Shichin there was a mustard stalk which had 
three branches, and one of them was cut down, and they 
covered a potter's booth with it. One of the Rabbins says: 
33 



292 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

" I have one stalk of mustard seed in my field, and I go up 
to it as one goes up to the top of a fig-tree." Ovalle, in 
his travels in Chili, thus confirms the Scripture account : 
" The mustard plant," he says, "thrives so mightily in Chili, 
that it is as big as a man's arm, and so high and thick that 
it looks like a tree. I have travelled many leagues through 
groves which were taller than man and horse, and the 
birds build their nests in them, as the Gospel mentions." 
This happily illustrates the wondrous greatness into which 
the religion of Christ grew from its small and obscure 
beginnings. 

The Apostles, in obedience to the Divine command, tar- 
ried at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from 
on high. That power came in the descent of the Holy 
Ghost on the day of Pentecost. Then was it that they 
began to preach " Jesus Christ and Him crucified, unto the 
Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness." 
And what was the result ? Fifty days from the ascension of 
Jesus, three thousand were converted under the preaching 
of Peter. In less than three years, churches were gathered 
"throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria." In seven 
vears the Gospel was first published to the Gentiles ; and 
in thirty years Christianity had spread through the numer- 
ous districts of Asia Minor, Greece, southward to Egypt. 
and westward to Rome. 

In a hundred years from the time of Christ, Justin 
Martyr, writing to the Emperor Adrian, declares : " There 
is not a nation, either Greek or Barbarian, or of any other 
name, even of those who wander in tribes and live in tents, 



THE MUSTARD SEED. 293 

among whom prayers are 'not offered to God the Father, in 
the name of the crucified Jesus." " We are but of yester- 
day," says Tertullian, writing a little later, "and have 
filled all places belonging to you. Your cities, islands, 
castles, towns, councils ; your very camps, wards, compa- 
nies; the palace, senate, forum; we have left you only 
your temples. Should the numerous hosts of Christians 
retire from the empire, the loss of so many men, of all 
ranks and degrees, would make you stand aghast at your 
desolation." In the fourth century, Chrysostom declares, 
" The Apostles of Christ were twelve, and they gained the 
whole earth. If you go to India, to Scythia, to the utter- 
most parts of the world, you will everywhere find the 
doctrine of Christ enlightening the souls of men." Such 
was the " great tree," " shooting out great branches," which 
spruug from the "grain of mustard seed!" History has 
nothing that can compare with it ; it stands an everlasting 
miracle of the Most High God. Eighteen hundred years 
have passed since the Apostles went forth from their upper 
room ; and how stands the religion of Jesus now ? Survey 
a map of the world, and mark on it the countries most 
celebrated for law, order, civil and political rights, and 
there you will find the religion of Jesus. Point out on it 
the lands most noted for virtue and morality, for social 
blessings and individual happiness, and there you will find 
the religion of Jesus. Designate the places where learning 
is most encouraged, where the mind has wrought out its 
proudest triumphs, where intellect has scattered its richest 
treasures, and there you will find the religion of Jesus. 



294 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

And why is this ? Why is civil and religious liberty 
found only where the Bible is free ? Why does learning 
flourish most under Gospel rule ? Why is society the most 
elevated and refined where the tenets of God's word 
prevail ? Why is all that is great, and good, and lofty, and 
inspiring in law, government, literature, science, art, and 
morality, only found among the nations of Christendom, 
while all that is debasing in intellect, tyrannical in power, 
degraded in morals ; whatever strips man of his glory, 
society of its safeguards, government of its virtue, is found 
where the religion of Jesus does not prevail? Can we 
solve the problem on the principles of human philosophy ? 
Gibbon tried it in his five celebrated reasons, but most 
signally failed. Can we explain it by the maxims of 
political science ? Machiavel and Montesquieu, and Guizot 
and Bacon, each assert that its wondrous development is 
an anomaly in the government of the world. Can we 
match it by any parallel, in any country, of any religion, 
by any impostor ? The voice of universal history answers, 
No ! It stands alone, the wonder of the universe ; the 
triumphal monument of Jesus, on the plains of a fallen 
humanity. 

But its present triumphs are only a moiety of its final 
conquests. Prophecy, reaching far into the future, has 
declared that "the isles shall wait for His law;" that 
" the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto Him ;" 
that " the Gentiles shall come to His light, and kings to 
the brightness of His rising;" that "all nations shall be 



THE MUSTARD SEED. 295 

blessed in Him ;" and that " the whole earth shall be filled 
with His glory." 

Thus that grain of truth, small as a mustard seed, sown 
at Jerusalem by the Son of man, has grown up into a tree 
of life, " sending out its boughs unto the sea, and its 
branches unto the river." 

Thus has it already gathered flocking nations under its 
shadow ; and it shall yet increase, until " the kingdoms of 
this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of 
His Christ," and the Herod-hunted child of Bethlehem, the 
despised carpenter's son of Nazareth, the hated teacher of 
Galilee, the crucified malefactor of Pilate, shall reign 
" King of nations, as He now does King of Saints." 



8%i §mk% 



THE LEAVEN. 

" The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in 
three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." Matt. xiii. 33. 

" Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman 
took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." 

Luke xiii. 20-21. 

UNDER this figure, borrowed from household economy, 
our Lord represents the assimilating power of His 
truth when brought in contact with the human heart. In 
the parable of the Mustard Seed, He illustrated the out- 
ward, visible growth of Christianity in the sight of the 
world ; here, however, He brings out its increase and power 
in a new aspect — its assimilative rather than its accretive 
property; its internal, penetrative, and diffusive energy, 
rather than its external outspreading and magnitude. 

Leaven is a small piece of acid dough, which, placed in 
a larger mass of meal or paste, produces fermentation, and 
thus, by the escape of the generated gas, diffuses a light- 
ness, or, in technical phrase, raises the dough with which 
it was intermixed. The word is generally used in the 
Bible in a bad sense; and, accordingly, there have not 
lacked interpreters, who, saying with Cyril, that " leaven, 
in the inspired writings, is always taken as the type of 

299 



300 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

naughtiness and sin," have contended that the design of it? 
use here was to indicate the damnable heresies and corrup- 
tions which should ferment in and adulterate the Church, 
puffing it up with vain delusions, and eventually making 
it a mass of apostacy and crime. This, however, is a 
forcing of language beyond its legitimate construction. 
The character of the parable, viewed in its contexts, is 
against such interpretation ; and we hence regard the word 
leaven as used here in an exceptional sense to its ordinary 
employment — our attention being directed, not to its fer- 
menting and puffing up properties, but to its penetrative and 
diffusive powers, by which the whole mass in which it is 
hidden soon partakes of its own nature. Using the figure, 
therefore, in a good sense, it illustrates, in a forcible man- 
ner, the work of grace — first in the individual heart, then 
in the great mass of humanity. 

It is the property of grace to change the whole soul into 
its own likeness. The incipient operation of the Holy 
Ghost may be as small and apparently as insignificant as a 
little piece of leaven ; but once hidden in the heart it will 
work little by little, until the man becomes a new creature 
in Christ Jesus. The principle of holiness, of love, of 
faith, of godly sorrow, or any other which is wrought by 
the Holy Ghost, cannot remain inactive in the heart ; and 
the moment that any of them are introduced there, 
there begins a commotion, an inward struggle for ascend- 
ancy between the new principle of grace and the old prin- 
ciples of sin, which is continued even until death. As sin 
and holiness cannot commingle, they necessarily antagonize : 



THE LEAVEN. 301 

one must displace the other — they cannot co-exist in the 
same heart with the same power. The heart, however, is 
by nature depraved ; it is preoccupied with evil ; it is, in 
the words of Scripture, " full of iniquity," and sin has so 
blinded its perceptive powers, and hardened its sensibilities, 
and perverted its judgment, that it now " calls evil good* 
and good evil," loves its present condition, " and rejoiceth 
in iniquity." The character of God is not loved, the Son 
of God is not loved, the law of God is not loved, the word 
of God is not loved ; nothing pertaining to God is an object 
of regard ; He is not in their thoughts ; they " desire not 
a knowledge of His ways." But as soon as the Holy Ghost 
infuses into that heart, vile as it is, and dead as it is in 
trespasses and sin, the first element of holy love, there 
begins a change there, which, working silently, gradually, 
yet effectively, will soon leaven the soul with the power 
of Divine grace. One by one the old affections and pas- 
sions of the soul become eradicated or changed ; the things 
in which the man once took supreme delight, now afford 
no joy; the emotions which he once cherished are now 
uncultivated ; the plans which once absorbed his energies 
are now neglected ; the passions which once were rampant 
in his breast are now tamed; the desires which once 
engrossed his thoughts are now viewed with disgust; while 
the things which he formerly hated and shunned — com- 
munion with God, love to Christ, joy in the Holy Ghost, 
delight in the Sacred Scriptures, the cultivation of holiness 
of life, the walking by faith and growing in grace, are now 



302 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

Bought for and cultivated with assiduity and delight. 
Grace is completely transforming in its nature and power. 
It causes every one whom it visits to wear its own likeness, 
and grow up into its own image; and when it once begins 
its work, though its progress may be slow, it will never- 
theless go on unto perfection, resting not until Christ is 
formed in the soul the hope of glory. 

It is perhaps important to a right understanding of this 
truth, that we should distinguish here between regeneration 
and sanctification — both, indeed, the work of the same 
Holy Ghost, and therefore too often confounded, though 
in reality quite distinct. Spiritual regeneration, or that 
new birth of the soul, so emphatically taught by our Lord 
in His discourse with Nicodemus, is the work of the Spirit 
of God, by which He causes the rebellion of the heart to 
cease, and the sinner to vield himself an humble servant 
of Jesus Christ. This act of faith, whereby the penitent 
lays hold on the Saviour as " the hope set before him in 
the Gospel," is the work of a moment. Up to a certain 
time He was a transgressor and an unbeliever ; the Holy 
Ghost visits his soul, opens to him a view of his sins ; 
points him to the Lamb of God, makes him hear the 
thunders of Sinai; holds up before him the sacrifice of 
Calvary ; melts him with the displays of love, wooes him 
with the invitings of grace, warns him with the threat- 
enings of the law; and, under the influence of one or more 
of these, he is led to break off from his sins, to repent, and 
to believe on the Lord Jesus ; and the turning point is on the 
hinge of a single moment. There may be long and tedious 



THE LEAVEN. 303 

processes of thought gone through before reaching that 
point ; but when reached, the act of submission, of belief, 
of embracing Christ, is the act of a moment, and not a 
lengthened, tedious operation. Nor does it follow from 
this that all are able to date the hour when they were born 
again; for they may have been so carefully trained in 
infancy, and so gradually led to Jesus, that it would be 
impossible for them to discriminate the time when He 
first became precious to their souls. But, as they were 
born in nature, and now are born in the Spirit ; as they 
were once enemies, and are now friends, of Christ ; as they 
were once exposed to Divine wrath, and are now freed 
from condemnation ; and as, when they were not in one 
of these states, they must have been in the other, because 
there is no middle path : it follows, even in the case of 
those who are unable to mark the period of their conver- 
sion, that their change, or regeneration, was effected by the 
Holy Ghost in an instant of time. All the examples of 
conversion in the Bible, all the terms and phrases which 
designate this change, and the experience of each believer, 
confirm this statement. Kegeneration, then, is that work 
of the Holy Ghost, whereby there is begotten in the soul 
an entirely new principle of spiritual life, so that hence- 
forth the man lives, " not unto himself, but unto Him that 
loved him and gave himself for him ;" and so radical and 
thorough is this change, that the recipient of it is with 
truth said to be " a new creature in Christ Jesus," in whom 
" old things have passed away," and with whom " all 
things have become new." 



304 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

Regeneration having been thus effected by the distinct 
act of the Holy Ghost, sanctification immediately begins ; 
which, taking this newly planted principle, cherishes and 
develops it in its various ramifications and to various degrees 
of strength. This, also, is the work of the Holy Ghost, 
and is gradual and progressive. 

In religion, as in nature, the new-born soul is a babe — a 
babe in Christ ; it has at first to be fed with " the sincere 
milk of the Word," that it may grow thereby. Hence, all 
the directions of the Bible, in reference to the Christian's 
life, look to growth, progress, increase ; and it is only by 
daily accretions of holiness that they are enabled to grow 
up into the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus. Like 
the action of leaven upon the three measures of meal, not 
changing its character at once by a sudden operation, but 
gradually and almost imperceptibly; so the doctrines of 
grace are not absorbed by the heart all at once, but are 
gradually received, as the spiritual power is able to receive 
them. Each day extends the power of Divine grace ; each 
day produces more development of Christian character; 
and as the assimilating process continues, there is seen one 
feature after another of Christ's likeness, shining out in 
our lives, proving that we are being renewed " after the 
image of Him that created us ;" and this leavening process 
works unseen to mortal eye and unheard by mortal ear, 
until the whole heart is leavened, and Christ is formed in 
it the hope of glory. 

As the operation of the Holy Ghost is thus leaven-like 
in its workings in the individual heart, so is it also in its 



THE LEAVEN. 805 

effects upon the great mass of mankind. The outward 
growth of the Church in the gathering in of new members, 
in the "lengthening of its cords" and the "strengthening 
of its stakes," and "breaking forth on the right hand and 
on the left," we can see and understand ; but there is a 
secret and hidden process prior to this open effect. There 
is the working of grace in the heart before the confession 
of faith with the lips ; there is an assimilating of the soul 
to Jesus before there is a public putting on of Christ ; and 
this process is ever at work in Christian communities. The 
minister of Christ preaches the Gospel, and it falls like seed 
upon the heart ; but he cannot follow it into the recesses 
of the soul ; and yet, there, hidden away, it begins its re- 
generating work, and, ere long, develops its full effect. The 
Bible is read and its truths take hold of the conscience, 
and in secret places the leaven of heavenly doctrine begins 
its assimilating power, until the heart is leavened with 
grace divine. Wherever the Gospel is preached, there is 
this leavening process going on. The world busies itself 
about its wars, its governments, its commerce, its literature, 
its fashions, its farms, its merchandise, and heeds not the 
silent work of the Holy Spirit in the inner chambers of a 
thousand hearts, effecting there those changes, and bringing 
out those results, which, in their aggregation, are to alter 
the face of earth, and make it "a dwelling-place of 
righteousness." 

For, as the woman took and hid this leaven in the meal, 
so is the grace of the Holy Spirit hidden from the carnal 

eye ; for " the natural man understandeth not the things 
20 



306 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

of the Spirit of God ; they are foolishness unto him, neither 
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 
The working of this Gospel leaven does not appear on the 
surface of society; it is covered up from outward observa- 
tion ; but beneath the surface, in the centre of the mass, 
at the core of humanity, it is fermenting and working, and 
changing that with which it is brought in contact; and 
this process it will infallibly continue " until the whole is 
leavened." 

It is a glorious thought, that this whole world shall be 
leavened with truth ; that the secret operation of this grace 
shall yet penetrate, purify, pervade, and assimilate to itself 
all nations, kindreds, tribes, and people, and shall make 
this, our fallen earth, so like the renewing power which 
converts and sanctifies it, that it shall become a " mountain 
of holiness," filled with the glory of the Triune God. 



% lib tow. 



THE HID TREASURE. 

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a 
man hath found, he hideth, and fer joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, 
and buyeth that field." Matt. xiii. 44. 

THERE are no less than seven parables in this thirteenth 
chapter of St. Matthew. They cluster together like 
stars in a constellation, forming, in the firmament of truth, 
a parabolic Pleiades. The first four were spoken in the 
hearing of the multitude by the sea-shore ; but after Jesus 
had sent the people away, and " went into the house," He 
first, at the request of His immediate disciples, unfolded 
the parable of the Tares of the Field, and then proceeded 
to speak three more parables, of which that under consid- 
eration was the first. 

In the earlier parables, our Lord had spoken of Christ- 
ianity in its general aspects and effects. He now brings it 
down to the personal needs of each individual, showing 
that it is not merely to be observed and admired at a dis- 
tance ; that it is not a thing about which we may or may 
not be interested without involving any moral conse- 
quences, but is, on the contrary, a matter of intense per- 
sonal importance — that which each one must possess or 
lose his soul. "The kingdom of heaven," says our Lord, 

309 



BIO THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

" is like unto treasure hid in a field." The value of the 
Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ does not lie 
upon the surface. It is indeed a treasure of great worth, 
even when regarded only in its historic or its literary 
aspect; as illustrating ancient manners and customs, as 
enforcing certain moral precepts, as f exhibiting much 
rhetorical elegance and power. Hence, we often find the 
Bible prized and lauded by those who are not animated by 
its spirit. Poets, philosophers, statesmen, heroes, jurists of 
highest name, have rendered profound praise to the inspired 
writings, who, nevertheless, " received not the truth in the 
love of it," and did not become " new creatures in Christ 
Jesus." The reason of their commendation is obvious. 
There are in the Bible such pages of history, such strains 
of poetry, such teachings of wisdom, such maxims of state 
policy, such illustrious deeds of valour, such profound 
principles of eternal and universal law, that even the 
prejudiced infidel has been forced to concede their merit; 
so that throughout Christendom the Bible has established 
itself, not only as the great moral classic of the world, but 
Art finds in its scenes its sublimest subjects, and Science 
acknowledges it as her loftiest standard. 

All this, however, is not the particular value here 
alluded to. The Gospel has a deeper worth than what is 
thus patent and generally acknowledged ; its real precious- 
ness lies in its spiritual blessings, by which it imparts to 
the soul " durable riches and honour." The blessedness 
of its faith, by which the soul is united to Jesus Christ; 
the peace, "passing all understanding," which it imparts 



THE HID TREASURE. 311 

to the heart; the "joy unspeakable" with which it ravishes 
the inner man ; the " hope that maketh not ashamed," 
pointing the drooping spirit to its bright inheritance in 
heaven ; the abundant supplies of grace through the mani- 
fold gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are bestowed upon the 
prayerful seekers for the Divine favour; these are some 
of the inestimable blessings which constitute the riches of 
this " treasure hid in a field." He who admires the Bible 
because of its outside excellencies, admires, indeed, a most 
rare and costly casket, but he knows nothing of what the 
casket contains. It is only the man of faith, who, with 
the key of prayer, unlocks this casket ; that truly beholds 
the treasure, and understands its value. 

There was, therefore, great propriety in Christ making 
this treasure to lie hidden in a field ; and this he could the 
more naturally do, because in Eastern countries, where 
there are no banks, or safe places of public deposit, and 
where, owing to the despotism of the rulers, or the relaxed 
state of society, property is unsafe, it is not uncommon for 
persons to make deposits of their treasures in the ground, 
selecting obscure and unattractive places, and there hiding 
them away. And as, in the convulsions which so often 
shake oriental nations, the owner of such a treasure might 
be cut off before he could have time to designate its locality 
to his friends or family, so, the secret dying with him, it 
would perhaps a long while continue there until by acci- 
dent it was discovered. 

The parable brings before us just this case. A person 
has by chance discovered concealed treasure ; he sees enough 



312 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

to know that it is there, and that it is very valuable ; but 
yet, respecting the law which made all that was in the 
earth the property of its owner, he seeks to buy the field 
at its ostensible value, keeping all the while the secret to 
himself, as a piece of knowledge to which he had exclusive 
right by reason of his exclusive discovery. Paying to the 
owner of the field the full price that he asks, the finder 
" sells all that he has," and buys the field, knowing that 
the treasure hidden there will remunerate all his outlays, 
and make him rich for life. 

Two points are to be noted here : — First, The discovery 
of this treasure. The man who found it was not expecting 
or seeking it. He did not know of its existence ; it was by 
the merest accident that he stumbled upon it ; he may have 
been examining the field for the purpose of ascertaining 
the quality of its soil, the nature of its situation, or its 
agricultural capabilities, and while thus engaged, some for- 
tuitous event brought him to the spot of concealment, and 
directed him to its hidden treasure. Here, we think, lies 
the distinction between this parable and the succeeding one. 
In that, the merchant was on the search for goodly pearls ; 
it was his set aim and business ; here, however, there was 
no seeking for hid treasure until chance brought it to 
his notice. Thus is it often with men in spiritual matters. 
From the force of early habit, or because of the propriety 
of the thing, or from motives of a literary or secular cha- 
racter, some may be daily reading God's Word, intent on 
giving breadth and vigour to their minds, but neither seek- 
ing nor caring for its buried treasure. They are looking at 



THE HID TREASURE. 313 

the Bible in every light but its true one, and seeking in it 
every blessing but that which is spiritual. While thus 
engaged, the Holy Ghost opens the eyes of their under- 
standing to perceive that, which by nature they cannot 
know, and lo ! they behold glimpses of a hid treasure, 
which at once awaken joy and excite increased desires after 
a deeper and more experimental knowledge of God's blessed 
Word. When the soul is thus wrought upon by the Holy 
Spirit, everything is changed. The field of Scripture, in 
which this precious treasure has so long been hidden, now 
becomes, in his estimation, of infinite value. It is that 
which puts him in possession of salvation and eternal life, 
which makes him an heir of God, and which gives him the 
riches of Divine grace for time and for eternity. 

For the discovery of this he is not indebted to the 
research or acumen of his own powers — for by no intel- 
lectual effort could these hid treasures be brought to light- 
but to the Holy Ghost, who gave him that spiritual discern 
ment and spiritual taste, by which he was enabled to dis- 
cover and appreciate the peculiar blessings of grace as they 
lie concealed from the natural eye and the carnal mind. 
Such is the cause of the man's discovering the treasure, 
and this brings us to the second point, viz., The value which 
he puts upon this treasure. 

In the parable it is said, that, "for joy thereof," the 
man " goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that 
field." This is precisely the feeling of the finder of Divine 
grace. In the joy of his discovery, he is ready to renounce 
everything of an earthly nature that conflicts with his pos- 



314 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

sessing it, and would willingly part with that which the 
world most highly esteems, that he may gain it as his own. 
Such was. the feeling of St. Paul. As a member of the 
Jewish community, and observing rigidly its Levitical ob- 
servances, he had, at one time, to use his own language, 
great " confidence in the flesh," i. e., great reliance on his 
own self-righteousness, a trusting for salvation to his rigid 
Phariseeism ; but, when he was arrested on his persecuting 
journey, and made to see the truth as it is in Jesus, when 
the scales had fallen from his eyes, and he beheld the long- 
hidden treasure before him, then he quickly abandoned all 
that he held most dear, saying, " What things were gain to 
me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I 
count all things but loss for the excellency of the know- 
ledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered 
the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I 
may win Christ." This is the very spirit of the man find- 
ing the hid treasure. He puts upon it its true value ; he 
estimates everything else as comparatively worthless ; he 
feels the force of the Saviour's assertion — " He that loveth 
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me ;" and 
that if we would be His disciples, we must "forsake all 
and follow him;" and, in the spirit of these injunctions, he 
is ready to give up everything that impedes his progress in 
the Divine life, or that conflicts with his getting possession 
of these hid treasures of the Gospel. 

The first aim of life, now, is to be " rich towards God ;" 
to obtain that soul-wealth which consists in faith, and love, 
and joy, and peace in the Lord Jesus ; to receive within 



THE HID TREASURE. 315 

himself " the earnest of his inheritance." "Whatever pur- 
suit formerly engrossed his mind is now abandoned, or made 
subservient to his new aim ; whatever passions ruled in his 
soul, and led him captive, are now mastered or made to do 
willing service to his Redeemer ; he no longer " lives unto 
himself," but unto Him that loved him, and gave Himself 
for him. 

It is impossible to put too high an estimate on this Gos- 
pel treasure. In whatever light we regard it, whether in 
itself, as an emanation from God ; or in its effects, as re- 
newing the soul, and making it meet for the inheritance 
ol the saints in light, it is of priceless value. 

In comparison with it, those things which the world 
most prizes, and after which men most strive, are as worth- 
less dross ; they have lost their wonted place in his imagi- 
nation ; he has found nobler riches ; and he will part with 
all that earth can give him, though it could multiply its 
gifts a thousandfold, that he may gain this priceless trea- 
sure — the salva/tion of his soul. 

We can never estimate spiritual blessings above their 
real value ; in truth, we can never give them their true 
worth ; we always underrate them, because we do not and 
cannot now see the full blessedness and glory which they 
contain. So much of the Christian's happiness lies in the 
other world, and so large a portion of it is revealed under 
figures which the mind can scarcely comprehend, that we 
completely fail in estimating their worth. The pleasures 
of the world we always set down at too high a figure; 
they ever appear in inflated magnitude and unreal import- 



316 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

ance ; but the pleasures of religion are always set too low ; 
and the world, the flesh, and the devil aim to depreciate 
their value, by distorting their character, maligning their 
influence, and perverting their power. But it will all be 
of no avail to him who has truly found Christ. To all 
such " Christ is precious," " the Chief among ten thousand, 
and the one altogether lovely." His soul finds its full joy 
and delight in Him. Christ is formed within him the hope 
of glory ; his heart has become a temple of the Holy Ghost ; 
his life is hid with Christ in God ; and, walking in faith, 
rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, instant in prayer, 
he moves on through life without any fear of the future, 
knowing that, when the earthly house of his tabernacle is 
dissolved, "he has a building of God, a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens." 



% $*«?(. 



THE PEAKL. 

" The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant-man seeking goodly pearls : 
who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, 
and bought it." Matt. xiii. 45-46. 

THE difference between this parable and the one of " The 
Hid Treasure" seems to lie in this : that in the latter, 
the man came upon the treasure unexpectedly, when he 
was neither thinking of nor looking for such a thing ; while 
in this, the merchant-man is seeking after the pearls, and 
has made it his business and his care to secure the very 
articles which he most desires. 

The two parables, therefore, furnish us with types of two 
different characters : — The man who, Paul-like, is arrested 
by the Holy Ghost and made to discover the hid treasure 
when he was neither seeking nor expecting it ; and those 
who, Berean-like, are " searching the Scriptures daily," that 
they may gather thence the pearls of grace and truth. The 
character of the first we have already considered, and we 
confine ourselves now to a brief delineation of the latter. 

The " merchant-man" in the parable was " seeking goodly 
pearls." That was the object of his daily care and labour. 
Ordinary pearls would not answer, they must be '? goodly ; J 
these were the object of anxious pursuit, because upon 

319 



320 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

obtaining them rested his reputation as a pearl dealer, as 
well as his profits from their sale. In his diligent search 
he is rewarded by discovering one " of great price," and 
such was its size, and perfection, that to obtain it he sold 
out all the goodly ones hitherto collected, and embarked his 
whole fortune in this one pearl, knowing, from the estima- 
tion in which the pearl was held by oriental princes, and 
the enormous prices which were paid for large, round, 
smooth, and unclouded ones, that he would be able to com- 
mand greater gains by the sale of this single pearl of great 
price than from all the pearls of inferior value, how 
" goodly" soever they might be. 

We occasionally meet with persons who have, like 
Timothy, been carefully instructed in the Scriptures " from 
a child," or who, like Samuel, have early been impressed 
with Divine truth, and who, possessing earnest and in- 
quiring minds, anxiously seek for that which will satisfy 
and comfort the soul. They deliberately set themselves to 
seek the truth; they are not careless and ignorant persons, 
but of meditative minds, of tender consciences, of craving 
souls, who believe that there are " goodly pearls" of grace 
to be found in God's Word, and who diligently seek them, 
while at the same time they have such defective views of 
the character of Christ as to make them rest short of that 
single-hearted faith in Him which alone secures salvation. 
There is a moral twilight as well as a natural one ; and 
many there are in this crepusculous state, who, like the 
man when half healed by Jesus of his blindness, " see men 
as trees walking." They have glimmerings of the truth, 



THE PEARL. * 321 

but have not got clear and distinct views of it ; they see it 
looming up amidst partial darkness, but not standing out 
sharp and clear in outline against a noonday sky. Such 
persons are apt, with a great deal that is true, to mix up 
deadly errors. They seek to augment their own righteous- 
ness ; they bring in their own morality as a ground of sal- 
vation ; they wish to do something which shall merit God's 
favour ; they seek to blend their work with Christ's perfect 
and finished work, and thus make a joint stock of their 
redemption. They lean perhaps too heavily upon rites and 
ceremonies, upon sacraments and ordinances : all " goodly 
pearls" in themselves, but not to be trusted or counted of 
value in comparison to the " one pearl of great price." 

No matter, however, w r ith what defective views a person 
comes to the Word of God, if he approaches it with a 
sincere desire to know God's will and do it ; if there is a 
moral honesty about him, that will not let him rest until 
he find the truth, then God will meet him in His Word, 
and reveal Himself to his mind, and cause him to find in 
Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation that rests on His 
precious death and sacrifice, the "pearl of great price;" for 
Christ declares, " He that doeth the will of God shall know 
of the doctrine whether it be of God ;" and the promise of 
God is, " Ye shall find me when ye seek me with all your 
heart." 

When such persons behold this pearl of great price, then 

are their eyes opened by the Holy Ghost to behold its 

excellency and value. They are seized with a quenchless 

desire to possess it ; their former discoveries in truth, on 

21 



322 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

theories of mind, in which, as " goodly pearls/'* they long 
traded and delighted, now appear in their real worthless- 
ness; and, willing to sell off that which they have hitherto 
obtained, they venture their eternal all upon this Pearl of 
great price. Nothing now will satisfy the soul of the true 
believer but Christ; he must possess Christ; he must 
make Him his own by a living, personal, appropriating faith : 
thus is he made to " put on Christ," to be " conformed to 
His image," and to rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full 
of glory. 

It matters not what goodly pearls we may possess — pearls 
of morality, or virtue, or education, or sensibility — if we 
have not Christ, they are valueless for all the purposes of 
salvation ; while he who has found Christ has found that 
which swallows up all lesser pearls in its priceless excel- 
lence and perfect beauty. 

We are taught by these parables that we must make 
every sacrifice, in order to obtain the rich blessings that are 
found in the Lord Jesus. To this duty we are urged by 
every consideration that can sway human conduct, and he 
is derelict to every duty to God and to his own soul who, 
when Christ is set before him as his Redeemer, fails to go 
to Him as such, and to secure from Him the pardon and the 
peace which He only can bestow. 

It is a matter of wonder and adoring gratitude that God 
condescends to put within our reach so unspeakable a gift. 
He was under no necessity to save us. But Christ loved 
us even when we were sinners, and by offering Himself to 
satisfy the demands of justice, was enabled to effect our 



THE PEARL. 323 

ransom, and yet preserve unimpaired the attributes of the 
Most High ; for, on Calvary, " mercy and truth met to- 
gether, righteousness and peace embraced each other." 
Since God then has given us this Pearl of Great Price, since 
Christ offers himself to us in all the fulness of His redeem- 
ing and mediatorial efficacy ; since the Holy Ghost pleads 
with us to accept His overtures of grace, and " buy the 
truth and sell it not," buy it " without money and without 
price ;" ought not we, for whom this rich provision is made, 
to renounce everything on which we lean, or in which we 
trust, that we may obtain this hidden treasure of the 
Gospel, and possess for ourselves this Pearl of Great Price ? 



% ftafo-gfct 



THE DKAW-NET. 

" The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and 
gathered of every kind : which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, 
and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the 
end of the world : the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among 
the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire ; there shall be wailing and 
gnashing of teeth." Matt. xiii. 47-50. 

WHILE the parable of " The Tares" illustrated the fact 
that there is, and will be until the end of the world, 
an intermixture of good and evil in the field of the Church, 
the parable of " The Draw-Net" is evidently designed to 
show the final separation that shall take place in God's ap- 
pointed time. 

While our Lord has so constructed some of his parables 
as that their unfolding should elucidate nearly all the great 
doctrines of religion, he has, in the prodigality of his in- 
struction, uttered many others, designed to set forth single, 
elemental truths ; even though several of them may seem 
to repeat the same ideas, or overlap each other in their 
covering of the same ground. 

Thus, we can easily draw out from the parable of the 
Tares all the instruction contained in the parable of the 
Draw-Net ; but Christ, wishing to fix its especial point upon 

327 



328 THE PAKABLES UNFOLDED. 

the minds and hearts of his auditors ; or because many of 
his hearers would better understand a figure drawn from 
the fisher's life than the farmer's field, and acting also 
upon the prophetic injunction, that "precept must be upon 
precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little," 
uttered yet another similitude, and made the draw-net of 
the Capernaum fisherman, as well as the field of the Gali- 
lean husbandman, illustrate the character of his Church 
here, and the separations that shall take place in it at the 
end of the world. 

The figure which is at present before us is that of a draw- 
net or seine. This is a fisher's implement, made of heavy 
twine, with meshes of various size, spread over a portion 
of the sea and sunk to a certain extent by weights, to give 
it depth, yet buoyed up from complete submersion by floats; 
which, after being stretched to a great distance, so as to 
enclose a large number of fishes, is gradually drawn together 
by its two ends, and brought to land. This operation is 
familiar to all who live by the sea-side, or upon watercourses, 
and needs no further explanation. 

When we remember that most of our Saviour's disciples, 
to whom this parable was more immediately addressed, 
were fishermen, and that He had called several of His 
Apostles from "casting their net into the sea," to become 
"fishers of men," we discern a force and directness in this 
similitude which they could not fail to appreciate. 

The point of special interest in this parable is, the ulti- 
mate separation that shall take place between the common 
occupants of this net, when it is drawn to land. 



THE DRAW-NET. 829 

By the draw-net is represented the Church ; by the 
fishes, the members of that Church ; and in this net are 
enclosed fishes, both " good and bad ;" showing, as in the 
parable of the Tares, the mixture of sound and unsound 
professors in Christ's earthly kingdom. Concerning this 
fact we need neither argue nor speculate. It is a revealed 
and an experimental truth, notorious even to human obser- 
vation, much more so to Him " who searcheih the reins 
and trieth the hearts of the children of men." 

Into the net of the Church were "gathered of every kind," 
even as in the parable of the Marriage of the King's Son — 
the "servants went out into the highways, and gathered 
together all, as many as they found, both bad and good." 
The Gospel is preached to all classes and conditions of men ; 
and some from each of these, professedly obey the call, and 
unite themselves to the visible Church. This state of things 
continues as long as the net is in the sea ; but, when it is 
full, when God's purposes, in reference to his earthly Church, 
shall be completed, then will it be "drawn to shore" — the 
shore of eternity; and there, under the eye of God, shall 
" the good be gathered into vessels," and " the bad shall be 
cast away." 

There is a time coming, when the moral imperfection 
which now pertains to the Church shall be done away; 
when the sound and faithful professors of Christ's religion 
shall be delivered from the presence of the evil disciples 
by whom their righteous souls have been so long vexed ; 
when, separated from all evil in themselves and around 
themselves, they shall be, in their finite capacity, holy as 
God is holy ; and when the wicked, severed from the good, 



330 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

shall be consigned to their merited doom. This separation 
will be necessary on the part of God, in order to vindicate 
his justice. It is said of Him, "Justice and judgment are 
the habitation of His throne." This justice requires that 
the penalties, as well as the rewards of His law, should be 
vigorously rendered. The penalties of the law against 
transgressors are very stringent and severe ; and not to 
inflict them would be to dishonour that law, both in its 
enactments and sanctions, and to falsify every attribute of 
the Divine character. Should God fail to punish the 
breakers of His law, He would not be just to Himself, His 
statutes, His creatures. He proclaims Himself repeatedly 
a "God of justice :" how could He be so, unless He sus- 
tained the penalties which He has denounced against sin? 
He has declared again and again, that His "law is holy," 
and His "commandment holy, and just, and good;" and 
that He will uphold it in its letter and spirit, in its length 
and breadth : how can He do this if He relax the sanc- 
tions by which it is enacted, and the penal clauses by 
which it is guarded ? He has declared that He " will by 
no means clear the guilty ;" and the conscience that He has 
put within His creatures, tells them that they have fully 
incurred the displeasure of their God, and deserve His 
reprobation : and He must fulfil His righteous promise. 

It would not be just in a human lawgiver to make a 
stringent code, and annex to its infraction severe penalties, 
and yet never design that they should be carried out : this 
would be a mockery of justice, and a deliberate insult to 
the majesty of law. Nor would it be just for human laws 



THE DRAW NET. 331 

to take no cognisance of criminals, to permit crime to go 
unpunished, and, by withdrawing the penalties due to the 
guilty, virtually exempt guilt from punishment, and place 
it on the same legal level with obedience and goodness. 
Better have no law ; better give up a community to the 
workings of the individual passions of its members — per- 
mitting each to " walk in the light of his own eyes, and 
after the counsel of his own heart ;" than to suffer a law tc 
be made null and void by stripping it of its sanctions, and 
taking from it its punitive and coercive power. Justice 
requires that human laws should be enforced; the well- 
being of society is indissolubly blended with their adminis- 
tration ; and if justice speaks with an uncertain voice, or 
with a fickle voice, or with a partial voice, or if it is dumb, 
then is society torn asunder limb from limb, and the body 
politic lies a mangled and bleeding corpse at the feet of 
anarchy and crime. Much more, then, is it necessary that 
God's law should be sustained, and that His justice should 
stand out in clear and full outline in the sight of the 
universe. 

But the truth of God, as well as His justice, requires this 
final separation between the good and the bad. He has 
said that it should take place ; His veracity is at stake upon 
the issue. But that God should falsify His word, that He 
should fail to do what He has said would be done, cannot 
for a moment be entertained by those who believe Him to 
be " a God of Truth," " with whom is no variableness, 
neither shadow of turning." 

The plain declaration of the Most High is, " The wicked 



332 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget 
God." " The soul that sinneth it shall die." " There is no 
peace, saith my God, to the wicked." These, with many 
others of similar import, are the positive assurances of God ; 
and hence, as " God is not a man that he should lie, nor 
the son of man that He should repent," so will He do what 
His truth has pledged Him to do, viz., "send forth His 
angels, and sever the wicked from among the just." 

The holiness of God also demands this eventual separa- 
tion. So exalted and indescribable is this attribute of the 
Almighty, that we seem to sully it even by speaking of it. 
We can scarcely talk of it without our very breath staining 
its glory ; for all our ideas of holiness consist in the relative 
freedom of a person from sin, and in proportion to the sin- 
lessness of any one, is His holiness, a state of sin being the 
stand-point from which we judge, because we are only con- 
versant with a world of sin. Abstract, essential, self- 
existent holiness, such as belongs to God, surpasses our com- 
prehension. A holiness that has no relation to sin, because 
it existed before sin ; a holiness that can be measured by 
no standard, because itself overtops every standard ; a holi- 
ness so holy that even the heavens " are not clean in His 
sight," so pure that " He covereth himself with light as 
with a garment," so august that " He chargeth even His 
angels with folly," so resplendent that it fills all heaven 
with its effulgence, and so ravishing that the celestial 
harpers make it the burden of their chants as they fall 
down before Him, veiling their faces with their wings, as 
they cry, " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty :" such 



ThE DRAW-NET. 333 

a holiness is as much above our conception as are the ideas 
of eternity or infinitude. When we can depict the sun in 
mid-day lustre with the chromates of the painter's pallet ; 
when we can measure the area of space with the triangu- 
lations of the geometer ; then perhaps may we be able, with 
the instrumentalities of earth-born words, to convey an 
adequate idea of the holiness of Jehovah. It is a subject 
which we shall ever study, and in which we shall never 
weary; but to know it in its fulness, to comprehend it in 
its infinitude, cannot be done by any created mind. This 
attribute, so ineffably glorious, demands the severance of 
the wicked from the good. The God who possesses it " can- 
not look upon sin but with abhorrence," and has declared 
that nothing unclean shall come into His holy habitation ; 
that into it " nothing shall enter that defileth or maketh a 
lie ;" that only " the pure in heart shall see God." Conse- 
quently there must be a dividing process when the net of 
the Church, now enclosing fishes good and bad, shall be 
drawn to shore — the shore of eternity. 

In like manner we might show that each one of the 
attributes of God requires this separation in the visible 
Church. But it need not be dwelt on now, because, if even 
one attribute required such a severance, that would be 
enough ; for God's character is not made up of diverse and 
opposing elements, but is a moral unit, and each attribute 
so harmonizes with the others, as that a violence done to 
one is done to all, and that which is requisite to the 
integrity or upholding of one, is equally necessary to the 
maintenance of every other perfection of the Divine Being. 

Leaving, therefore, the point which we think has been so 



334 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

clearly established, viz., that the character of God requires 
this final separation in the contents of the Gospel net ; we 
further remark, that it is necessary also to the happiness 
and perfection of His believing people. The condition of 
true Christians in the visible Church is one of mingled joy 
and sorrow. They have indeed great cause for rejoicing ; 
they have sources of pleasure, Divine alike in their origin 
and their comfort; they have a hope "that maketh not 
ashamed ;" they have a peace " that passeth understanding ;" 
there is for them "no condemnation," because their lives 
are "hid with Christ in God;" and, in view of the assaults of 
their last enemy, they are enabled to exclaim, "Thanks be 
unto God, who giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ 
our Lord." Yet, at the same time, it must be confessed 
that what the Apostle said is strictly true — "if in this life 
only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable." 
The very fact that we have been renewed in the temper 
and disposition of our minds, that we have been born again 
of the Holy Ghost, that old things have passed away and 
that all things have become new, only makes us realize more 
vividly our sad condition, to be thus dwellers in an ungodly 
world, and to be thus of necessity so mixed up with sin and 
corruption and unbelief in the walks of daily life. The true 
Christian finds everything about him antagonistical to his 
thoughts and feelings. He loves Christ supremely ; the world 
hates Him supremely. He delights to do God's will ; the 
world revels in its disobedience. His heart is set on things 
heavenly and Divine ; " the heart of the sons of men is 
fully set in them to do evil." Pie longs for a release from 
a place where his soul, like that of righteous Lot, "is 



THE DRAW-NET. 335 

vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked ;" he is 
daily pained at the manifestations of sin and unbelief; he 
mourns at the spiritual destitution of his fellow men, and 
at the rampant evils that rear themselves unbridled, and 
raven unchecked upon the vitals of society. Sin meets his 
eye wherever he turns. In the Church, he sees hypocrisy, 
formality, self-righteousness, censoriousness, lukewarmness, 
and backsliding. In the family, he finds peevishness, ill 
temper, discord, variance, strifes, evil surmisings, and posi- 
tive hatred. In the state, he perceives crimes of every sort 
and hue, the decalogue broken in each one of its command- 
ments, and iniquity restrained, only by the strong right arm 
of law. In business, he is made to witness fraud, over- 
reachings, deceptions, lying; so that, look where he will, he 
is constrained to say with the Psalmist, " Woe is me, that 
I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar !" 

We are ever made to feel that we are in an enemy's 
country ; that here, as the Patriarchs confessed, " we have 
no abiding city, but we seek one to come ;" that " we who 
are in tabernacles of flesh do groan, being burdened ;" bur- 
dened with the remaining corruption of our own hearts ; 
burdened with our daily short-comings and omissions of 
duty; burdened with our positive transgressions ; burdened 
with our often infirmities ; and burdened with seeing and 
hearing the ungodliness that surrounds us, and that is ever 
crying to heaven for vengeance. 

Such being our condition, it follows that we need deliver- 
ance from this state of trial, that we may be brought out 
" into the glorious liberty of the children of God." As 
*his is a world of probation, we do not expect that this 



336 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

severance of good and ill will take place here, for it 
would cease to be probation were all sin and temptation 
removed from our path. But must such a commixture 
always exist ? No. A time of deliverance is at hand ; the 
year of release draws near ; and ere long the trumpet of 
Jubilee, proclaiming that " the acceptable year of the Lord" 
has come, shall ring out its silver notes of freedom and of 
rest. God loves us, and will not always suffer us to be 
overborne by the gruff and gainsaying world; He has 
thoughts of mercy towards us, and hence will keep us in tri- 
bulation only for a little season ; His gracious words are, 
" Though ye have lain among the pots, yet shall ye be as 
the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers 
with yellow gold ;" therefore, " look up, and lift up your 
heads, for your redemption draweth near." His gracious 
purposes in keeping us in the furnace of affliction being 
accomplished, we shall be removed thence, having our 
dross purged away, and shall come out as fine gold, meet for 
the master's use. Then shall His suffering people be made 
joyful in the Lord : separated from whatever has annoyed 
and troubled them here, and manifesting themselves in their 
true character, as " children of light and of the day," they 
"shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." 
It is necessary, then, to the felicity of His saints, to the 
full development of Divine grace in the soul, and to the 
accomplishment of God's purposes in their election and 
regeneration, that there should be a sending forth of angels 
" at the end of the world," to " sever the wicked from 
among the just." Reason and revelation assent to and 
confirm this truth. It is the hope of the Christian, as he 



THE DRAW-NET. 337 

takes his weary pilgrim steps towards the Celestial City; 
and it is the joy of the dying believer, as he puts off this 
tabernacle of clay, and looks forward to the mansion of 
rest, "into which nothing shall enter that defileth or 
maketh a lie." 

It is remarkable that in this parable our Lord does not 
say what will become of the good, after they are gathered 
" into vessels," though He tells us what will become of the 
bad ; as if the parable was uttered more for warning to 
the evil professors than for encouragement to the faith- 
ful. In the parable of the Tares, indeed, He has told us 
that, after the separation there spoken of, " the righteous 
shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their 
Father;" and as the righteous are one and the same class 
in each parable, so we infer that all those who, out of the 
Gospel net, are gathered " into vessels," will enjoy a felicity 
and glory surpassing human conception, and only to be 
represented to the human mind by comparing them to 
suns, shining in full-orbed glory in the firmament of 
Heaven. 

Most fearful, however, are the words which indicate the 
course of justice upon the wicked. "The angels shall 
come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and 
shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be 
wailing and gnashing of teeth ;" the same punishment that 
was to be inflicted upon the children of the wicked one in 
the parable of the Tares. It cannot escape the notice of 
the Bible reader, how frequently the element of fire is 
made to act a part in the punishment of the ungodly. 
Whether those numerous passages in which this idea is 



338 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

brought out are to be taken literally, so that we are to 
learn thereby that the wicked, after the resurrection, shall 
indeed dwell with everlasting burnings; that the living, 
quenchless flames of material fire shall ever wrap them- 
selves about their guilty yet unconsumable bodies, causing 
. them to gnash their teeth for pain, and wail for anguish, is 
not for us to assert or deny. One thing is certain, that, by 
the use of such language, God designs that we should 
gather the most painful and horrific idea of woe of which 
it is possible for the human mind to conceive; that we 
should understand by this means the intensity and unbear- 
ableness of the doom which will be visited upon the 
ungodly, and that this punishment shall never end ; for all 
who love not the Lord Jesus Christ shall be cast into hell, 
"where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not 
quenched." 

This is the idea that we should ever keep in mind, that 
there is reserved for the unbelieving an anguish of spirit, 
which in its inflicted sorrows shall be, like furnace fire, 
ever preying upon, yet never consuming, its undying 
victim. The warning is boldly, fully given. There is no 
deception about its nature or its duration. The Bible 
holds it up before men in full view, and writes it out in 
such frequently repeated and magnified letters as that " he 
may read that runs ;" so that men are left without excuse, 
if, in spite of remonstrance, and invitation, and appeal, and 
the pleadings of mercy, and the overtures of grace, they 
deliberately go down, step by step, to that woe which is 
emphatically expressed by being " cast into the furnace of 
fire," where " there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." 



gifo# atft Jtopras. 



DIYES AND LAZARUS. 

" There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and 
fared sumptuously every day : And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, 
which was laid at his gate, full of sores : and desiring to be fed with the crumbs 
which fell from the rich man's table : moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. 
A.nd it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into 
Abraham's bosom : the rich man also died, and was buried ; And in hell he lifted 
up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his 
bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send 
Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, p/nd cool my tongue : for I 
am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy 
lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : but now he 
is comforted, and thou art tormented. And besides all this, between us and you 
there is a great gulf fixed : so that they which would pass from hence to you 
cannot ; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, 
I pray thee, therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: 
For I have five brethren ; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into 
this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the pro- 
phets ; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, Father Abraham : but if one went 
unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear 
not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from 
the dead." Luke xvi. 19-31. 

IN some respects this is one of the most remarkable para- 
bles uttered by our Lord. It brings before us the two 
extremes of life, the two extremes of death, and the two 
extremes of existence beyond the grave. Each of these 
couplets may be regarded as an act in the parabolic drama ; 

341 



342 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

the characters employed in their representation being a 
beggar, a rich man, the patriarch Abraham, and attending 
angels ; while the scene is laid in Earth, and Heaven, and 
Hell. The consideration of these several acts will put us 
in possession of the true scope of the parable, and enable 
us to explain its minor features and design. 

There is first exhibited before us the two extremes of 
life. A very rich man and a very poor man. The rich 
man presents himself clothed in purple and fine linen, and 
faring sumptuously every day. Nothing could more clearly 
indicate his wealth and splendour; for though, in later 
times, robes of purple have been appropriated to royalty 
alone, yet in Christ's day it was the dress of the rich, the 
great, and the favourites in the courts of princes, who are 
thence often termed by Cicero and Livy " Purpurati " 
Kobes of purple were very costly, because of the scarcity 
of the shell-fish (murex trunculus) from which the Tyrians 
obtained their celebrated dye, or from the rareness of the 
purpura, from which, according to Pliny, the Phoenicians 
extracted their rich varieties of purple. 

Of nearly equal costliness was the " fine linen," in which 
the rich man was clothed ; consisting of an under-vest or 
tunic, composed chiefly of the Egyptian flax or Bambusa, 
which was of a soft texture, and so expensive, being worth 
its weight in gold, as to be worn only by princes, priests, 
or persons of great estate. In saying, then, that he was 
"clothed in purple and fine linen," nothing more was 
needed to indicate the costliness and magnificence of his 
attire. 



DIVES AND LAZARUS. 343 

But he " fared sumptuously/' as well as dressed royally ; 
and that not occasionally, but " every day." His life was 
a daily feast, full of everything that could gratify the 
palate of an epicurean lord. Of course, his dwelling was 
in keeping with his wardrobe and his table ; and when we 
say, therefore, that he was gorgeously arrayed, sumptuously 
fed, and nobly lodged, we cover the whole ground of luxu- 
rious living, and that outward splendour which is so much 
coveted by men. 

Turn now to the Beggar. His name is Lazarus. The 
name of the rich man has not been mentioned (for the 
term Dives, the Latin word for rich, magnificent, is a con- 
ventional name given to him by uninspired writers), but 
that of the beggar has been recorded. " Seems he not to 
you," asks Augustine, " to have been reading from that 
book where he found the name of the poor man written, 
but found not the name of the rich, even the book of 
life ?" The names of multitudes of the poor, whom the 
world knows not of, will be found recorded in " the Lamb's 
Book of Life," and engraven on the palms of the hands of 
the crucified, while the names of but few of the rich, the 
wise, the noble, are written there; for they are the "men 
of the world who have their portion in this life." 

Of this Lazarus (a name derived, as some think, from a 
Hebrew word, signifying a helpless person ; or according to 
others, from a word which is interpreted God is my helper) , 
it is said, that " he was laid at the gate of this rich man, 
full of sores, desiring to be fed with the crumbs," or broken 
meat, " which fell from his table : moreover the dogs came 
and licked his sores." 



344 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

The portal of a great mansion was often a place of resort 
for beggars, that the passers in and out might give them 
alms ; a custom mentioned as far back as Homer, in the 
Iliad and the Odyssey, and still kept up in many parts of 
the Eastern world. This description of Lazarus, like that 
of the rich man, is brief, but emphatic, the strokes which 
pencil his condition are few, but masterly, and give us a 
full insight into his wretchedness and want. He was help- 
less, for the verb, was laid, being in the passive voice, implies 
that he was borne and' placed there by the aid of others, 
consequently was himself helpless. " Was laid at his gate" 
like a common beggar, a miserable dependent mendicant ; 
"full of sores" diseased all over his body with grievous 
ulcers, which must have been intensely painful by their 
number and malignity, increased by his daily exposure and 
by the want of proper sanatives and emollients ; " desiring 
to be fed with the crumbs" not asking to sit at the rich 
man's table, nor yet to eat with his servants, but only for 
the broken refuse meat which fell from the platters and was 
swept into the streets ; " the dogs came and licked his sores" — 
so miserable that he was unable to fray away the dogs, 
which, attracted by the blood and sanies of his diseased 
limbs, came and licked them, thus reducing him almost to 
the level of the brute creation. These are the outlines of 
a misery rarely met with, and present to our imaginations 
a loathsome and repulsive object. 

Such was the relative condition of the two in this life. 
The one, with a stately mansion, princely clothing, sump- 
tuous fare, numerous servants, courtly friends ; having all 



DIVES AND LAZARUS. 345 

that heart could wish or money buy ; filling himself day 
by day with these objects of sensuality and pride, and 
neither thinking nor caring for the poor, the sick, the 
houseless, the hungry; absorbed in self, living for the 
present, reckless of the future. The other, without a 
home, a bed, a table, with no companions but dogs, no 
resting-place but the gateway, no clothing but rags; 
hungry, diseased, helpless ; a burden to himself, an offence 
to the rich ; gathering a scanty pittance from the alms of 
travellers, and satisfying a craving hunger with the crumbs 
which he shared with dogs and menials. Who would not 
envy the rich man ? Who would not deprecate the condi- 
tion of Lazarus ? 

But the scene changes, and brings us to the close of 
their respective lives. "And it came to pass that the 
beggar died; the rich man also died and was buried." 
Death is the common lot of all. He blends the sceptre 
and the spade, and in the language of Horace, knocks with 
equal pace at the gates of the palace, and the hovels of 
the poor. The beggar died first. There is, however, no 
record of his funeral. He was hurried into the ground, 
perhaps unhonoured, unwept, uncared for, "buried with 
the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates 
of Jerusalem." 

Not so with the rich man : " He died and was buried ;" 
interred, doubtless, with pomp and ceremony; for the 
wealth which commanded friends when living, could com- 
mand mourners when dead. Here, again, who would not 
prefer the condition of the rich man to that of Lazarus ? 



346 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

The one dies surrounded by skilful physicians, faithful 
nurses, officious attendants, and is borne to the costly tomb 
with all the insignia of courtly grief; the other passes 
away alone, is coffined in his rags, and, without a mourner 
to drop a tear, is hurried out of sight. Thus closes the 
earthly history of Dives and Lazarus. Here the curtain 
of life drops, and corruption and the worm return both to 
their native dust. 

The scene again changes, and the future, with its vast 
consequences, opens before us. 

Dives and Lazarus again come into view, but how 
changed their state ! 

The rich man ! where is he ? " In hell, lifting up his 
eyes in torment." Where were his riches, his purple robes, 
his sumptuous fare, his lordly mansion? Could none of 
these save him ? Could none of these buy him a place in 
heaven ? No ! stripped of his wealth, his robes, his feasts, 
his friends, he is thrust into hell, where his riches and 
luxuries but feed the flames which burn but never consume 
their victim. 

The beggar ! where is he ? His body, perhaps, had 
scarce the semblance of an earthly burial, yet his soul was 
borne "by angels into Abraham's bosom." What though 
princes even carried the body of Dives to the tomb ? Laza- 
rus had the higher honour, for celestial spirits conveyed his 
soul to glory. 

The Jews expressed the happiness of the righteous at 
death in three ways. — " They go to the garden of Eden ;" 
" they go to be under the throne of glory ;" " they go to 



DIVES AND LAZARUS. 347 

the bosom of Abraham ;" and it was in reference to this 
general idea that our Lord introduced this expression, to 
denote the future happiness of Lazarus. He was in the 
bosom of Abraham, " the Father of the faithful." He whom 
the rich man scorned to have at his table was received into 
the arms of Abraham, "the friend of God;" resting in the 
highest felicity which the Jewish mind could imagine. 

The repose of Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham is repre- 
sented in the parable as being seen by Dives, for it is stated 
that "in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and 
seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." Here 
again our Saviour accommodates his language to the com- 
mon notions of the Jews, who were taught by the rabbinical 
writers to believe, that the gates of Paradise were over 
against the gates of Hell ; separated, indeed, by an impassa- 
ble gulf, yet within eye-range and ear-shot of each other. 
As soon as the rich man saw Lazarus he recognised him, 
and calls him by name, and prays to Abraham to send him 
" that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool 
his tongue, for he was tormented in this flame;" brief 
words, these, yet expressive of intense woe. The torment- 
ing flame, the parching tongue, the quenchless thirst — a 
thirst so great that the only boon it asks is one drop of 
water from the "tip of one finger" — superadded to the 
humbling position of a beggar, asking like a miserable 
mendicant for a favour from the hands of him whom, on 
earth, he spurned with contempt, constitute the elements 
of his unearthly agony. His request, small as it is, is 
denied. He is bid remember, that he, "in his lifetime, 



348 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

received his good things ;" he was one of those "men of the 
world" described by the Psalmist, " who have their portion 
in this life," who flourish here "like a green bay-tree," 
"whose hearts were fat as brawn," and who, in consequence, 
lifted up their proud spirits against God, asking, with all the 
insulting haughtiness of Pharaoh, " Who is the Lord that 
I should serve Him ?" All this he is bid remember, and 
as his busy memory wakes into more than wonted activity, 
he remembers his calls of mercy rejected, his opportunities 
of grace slighted, his vows of obedience broken, and guilt, 
transgression, rebellion, gather around his mind with most 
harassing power. Among all the fearful torments of the 
lost, none will exceed those which memory will furnish in 
the perpetual review of the past. 

Undaunted by the denial of this request, he prefers 
another : " I pray thee, therefore, Father, that thou 
wouldst send him to my father's house, for I have five 
brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also 
come into this place of torment." By the first reply of 
Abraham, he ascertained that there was no hope for him, 
and abandoning all attempt to get a personal favour, 
he turns his thoughts to his relatives on earth, who, 
pursuing, as he knew, the same course which he had 
followed, would, like him, take up their abode in everlast- 
ing burnings. For their sakes, therefore, he pleads that 
Abraham would "send Lazarus to his father's house," 
to warn them by his end of the dreadful fate wjiich 
awaited them, if they continued in their sinful course. 
Abraham replies, " They have Moses and the Prophets, let 



DIVES AND LAZARUS. 349 

them hear them." In the request of Dives there was a 
virtual implication that he had not been sufficiently 
warned, an idea which is still further sustained in his 
rejoinder : " Nay, Father Abraham ; but if one went unto 
them from the dead they will repent," evidently hinting 
that Moses and the Prophets were not a sufficient warning, 
and that had a messenger from the unseen world visited 
him, as he wished Lazarus to do his brethren, he would 
have repented, and avoided that place of torment; thus 
aiming to charge upon God what he had brought upon 
himself. But Abraham closes the dialogue with the solemn 
yet emphatic assertion, " If they hear not Moses and the 
Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose 
from the dead." 

The phrase "Moses and the Prophets" is a common 
formula to express the writings of the Old Testament; 
and the assertion of Abraham proves that where the 
teachings of these sacred books are disregarded, no amount 
of personal revelation will be productive of benefit; for 
the same evil dispositions and perverse will which hinder 
men from believing the truths contained in the Scriptures, 
attested as they are by signs and wonders of most miracu 
lous power, would lead them, after the first startling 
excitement was over, to disbelieve even though one went 
unto them from the dead. The point at issue between 
Dives and Abraham, resolves itself into this question : Is 
a standing revelation better suited to man as an accountable 
being, than a special and individual one ? This opens toe 
wide a subject to be fully discussed here, yet it cannot be 



350 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

dismissed without some statements which will go far to 
solve the question. 

We might settle the matter in a very summary way by 
saying that whatever plan a God of infinite wisdom has 
devised, is that which is best adapted to man as a spiritual 
and immortal being; a standing revelation is that plan 
which God has devised, 'therefore a standing revelation is 
that which is best adapted to man as a spiritual and im- 
mortal being. 

Those who acknowledge both the major and the minor 
premises, as duly assumed, will unhesitatingly adopt the 
conclusion — for the syllogism is a perfect one, a,nd in the 
simplest form. 

Waiving however this strictly logical argument, which 
ig amply sufficient for all honest and reverent minds, we 
can discover many reasons why there is more weight, and 
should be more influence, in a standing than in a private 
revelation, made to particular persons, in different times, 
places, and conditions. 

A standing revelation is not so easily counterfeited ; it is 
supported by public "and notorious evidences and monu- 
ments; it is of universal application, and thus bears, 
equally on all ; it is more easily appreciated and understood, 
as it concentrates upon itself the interpretation of thousands 
of strong, educated, and prayerful minds; it is more per- 
manent and unchanging ; it is better fitted to unfold the 
great lineaments of Jehovah's character ; and it is more 
consonant to the analogy of nature, wherein God operates 
through general laws, those standing and irreversible 



DIVES AND LAZARUS. 351 

statutes of His physical kingdom, which we term the laws 
of nature, and upon the permanence of which is based all 
human science. 

We go further, and assert that the evidence which sustains 
our standing Eevelation is greater than any which could 
be given by one coming from the Spirit world. For con- 
sider what would be the nature of the evidence which such 
a messenger from the dead would give ! It would be that of 
a private individual, who could tell only his personal ex- 
perience, and would possess merely the authority of a 
traveller to the Spirit land, narrating what he had seen and 
heard. 

But is the evidence of such an one at all comparable to 
the evidence of the Bible? Is the narrative of a finite 
creature to be preferred to the Eevelation of the infinite 
God ? Is the story of one who tells only what his limited 
observation has gathered better than the words of Him 
who knoweth the end from the beginning ? Did Lazarus 
who rose from the dead have a better knowledge of the 
unseen world than He by whom He was raised ? 

Let us look a moment at the respective value of the two 
kinds of evidence. In the case of the Bible, the grounds 
on which we receive and believe it, are its public, unim- 
pe ached, and wondrous miracles ; its numerous, comprehen- 
sive, and far-reaching prophecies ; the unparalleled preserva- 
tion of its sacred books ; the ever accumulating mass of 
historical proof; its numerous collateral and corroborative 
monuments; its peculiar and superhuman doctrines; its 
perfectly demonstrable inspiration by the Holy Ghost ; its 



352 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

reception by the universal Church ; its minute adaptation 
to the multifarious wants of the soul; the regenerating 
power which it has already exercised upon the human race. 
And this evidence appeals to the affections of the heart, 
to the faculties of the mind, to the conscience, reason, and 
judgment of mankind. 

In the case of an apparition from the dead there would 
only be the personal irresponsible authority of a single 
Individual, appealing not to your judgment and reason, for 
that would be lost in your fright ; not to the sober faculties 
of your mind, for those would be paralyzed with fear ; but 
to your excited fancies, to your stimulated imagination, 
startled into intense action by the standing before you of 
one "from the dead." 

Let any candid mind say if this is any evidence at all, 
worthy to be compared to that which underlies the massive 
fabric of Kevelation ! We know that just in proportion as 
the imagination is excited beyond its healthful operations, 
or the passions stimulated beyond their legitimate action, 
the reflective and judicial faculties of the mind are depressed 
and weakened; the perceptions of the intellect are dis- 
torted, the decisions of the judgment are perverted, the 
operation of the will is irregular; the law of proportion, 
which, when the mind is in a normal state, keeps all its 
faculties in their just relation and due action, is violated, 
and no true judgment or decision can be had or reached 
by an individual whose mind is either paralyzed with fear, 
or bewildered by excitement. 

It is perfectly absurd, therefore, to place the evidence 



DIVES AND LAZARUS. 853 

afforded by an apparition from the dead on a footing with 
that which upholds " Moses and the Prophets." But, fur- 
ther, the very grounds on which men object to the testi- 
mony of the Bible, apply with greater force to the evidence 
of " one from the dead." The objections to the Bible are 
mainly on two grounds, viz., as a revelation of the will of 
God, and as a system of moral doctrines. The objection 
to the Bible because it is a revelation from God, lies harder 
against a man from the dead, than against the Scriptures, 
for what would his message be but a revelation ? and a 
revelation of things beyond the cognisance of your senses, 
or the testimony of your fellow men ! And so, of course, 
on Hume's principles, it must be discarded, or else you are 
placed in the dilemma of accepting the evidence of a soli- 
tary and individual revelation, and rejecting the vast and 
ever accumulating evidence which sustains the Word of 
God. Which is most reasonable? Which demands the 
greatest credulity ? 

If the objection to a standing revelation be on account 
of its doctrines, then, if the man from the dead taught the 
doctrines of the Bible, you would no more believe him 
than you would " Moses and the Prophets ;" if he taught 
doctrines contrary to the Gospel, then, before you can 
receive them, you must demand for their confirmation a 
proof as strong at least as that by which we prove the 
Scriptures to be of God, and even stronger, to counter- 
balance the prima facie authority of Revelation. When 
such evidence can be produced, then will we " read, mark, 
learn, and inwardly digest it;" but as no such has been 
23 



854 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

given, and none possibly can be, we dismiss the objection 
as one originating in the pride of the sinful heart, unwilling 
to bow to the humbling doctrines of the Cross, rather than 
in the deductions of a calm reason, or an unbiassed judg- 
ment. 

But the falsity of these subterfuges will still more 
strongly appear, if we remember the fact that the very 
condition of things desired by the rich man in the parable 
has taken place, and yet the anticipated results have not 
followed. One has come to us from the dead! Jesus 
Christ rose from the dead, and, what is of great importance 
to our case, rose for the very purpose of confirming the 
doctrines of Eevelation; for St. Paul so rests the whole 
superstructure of the Gospel on the resurrection of Christ, 
that he says, with great emphasis, " If Christ be not risen, 
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain : ye 
are yet in your sins." Yet how few believe the words of 
Jesus ; how few repent at His warnings of wrath, or His 
invitations of grace ! 

The very men who most clamorously say "but if one 
came unto us from the dead, and told us the facts concerning 
the unseen world, that sin is punished with unspeakable 
woe, and that persistence in our present course will bring 
us to that place of torment, we would repent," are those 
who most sedulously refuse to listen to the teachings of 
the Saviour who did come from the dead, and who tells us 
in the Gospel what He sees and knows of the world to 
come. 

To the open ear of the sincere inquirer, the Scriptures 



DIVES AND LAZARUS. - 355 

speak out clear and full, and he who yields to their guiding 
voice will, at death, be " carried by angels into Abraham's 
bosom ;" but, to the wilfully closed ear, no attestations, come 
they whence they may, will prove effectual, for persistent 
unbelief will cast them all aside, and rush with infatuated 
step over every barrier until death ends his earthly career, 
and " in hell he lifts up his eyes, being in torment." 

This parable is full of instructive suggestions. It teaches 
that the condition of the soul, in the other world, is not at 
all affected by the condition of the body in this. "God is 
no respecter of persons." Moral qualifications alone shall 
decide our position in eternity. 

It teaches that a man may be poor and miserable and 
despised on earth, and yet be dear to saints, to angels, and 
to God. Joseph in Pharaoh's dungeon, David hiding in 
caves, Elijah "hunted like a partridge upon the moun- 
tains," the Apostles regarded as "the offscouring of all 
things ;" and above all, the personal history of our 
blessed Lord, who was "a man of sorrows," and "had 
not where to lay his head," amply sustain this precious 
truth. 

It teaches that riches, honours, friends are no security 
against death and hell. "Riches" says Solomon, "profit 
not in the day of wrath ;" and Zephaniah boldly declares 
of the ungodly, " Neither their silver nor their gold shall 
be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath." 
Honours are but rainbows painted on the spray of popular 
applause, vanishing as soon as formed ; even as the Psalm- 
ist says, " Man being in honour abideth not." Friends are 



356 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

but flesh and blood, as mortal and as impotent as ourselves ; 
" none of them" writes David, " can, by any means, redeem 
his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him." He, there- 
fore, who trusts in either of these, trusts in that which will 
fail him in the day of trouble. 

It teaches that those who revile the godly and the 
poor in this life, shall respect and envy them in the life to 
come. The rich man took no notice of Lazarus when liv- 
ing, but was most anxious to secure his services when in 
eternity. And who are they " of whom" the Apostle says 
" the world was not worthy ?" Its kings ? its poets ? its 
heroes ? its philosophers ? No ! but the lowly, despised, 
and persecuted servants of God ; those who " had trial of 
mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and im- 
prisonments, who were stoned, were sawn asunder, were 
tempted, were slain with the sword, who wandered about 
in sheep , skins and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, 
tormented." The world does not write these names in its 
history with illuminated capitals, but they are written in 
the "Lamb's Book of Life." They are not decked with 
earthly honours, but they are dressed with kingly robes, 
and wear kingly crowns in Heaven. 

It teaches that all those who have their " good things 
in this life" can expect none in the next. So much are 
we under the dominion of the temporal and the material, 
that the present too often absorbs our thoughts to the ex- 
clusion of the spiritual and the eternal ; and the cry of 
most men, like that of the departing Prodigal, is, " Father, 
give me the portion of goods that falleth to me." They 



DIVES AND LAZARUS. 357 

are under the sway of sense ; they do not walk by faith ; 
they live only for the present, and come under the class 
described by David, "men of the world, who have their 
portion in this life." They have chosen their part, but it- 
is a worldly one, and when called hence they lose it, and 
have no heavenly portion in reversion. 

This parable conveys a solemn warning to the rich. It 
is to be observed that our Lord does not charge the rich 
man with any positive crime or immorality. He merely 
states that he was rich, and lived in a style corresponding 
to his wealth, which may be said of many a truly good 
man. But he was evidently one who "trusted in his 
riches," of whom the Saviour declared, " it is easier for a 
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich 
man to enter the kingdom of God." The snare of wealth 
lies in "its deceitfulness," and he who would avoid its 
entangling meshes, must use his riches as a steward's trust, 
for which he must give account at the judgment-seat of 
Christ. 

This parable should prove a consolation to the pious poor. 
What though he begs his daily bread, and lies in rags at the 
gates of the rich ? Was not Jesus born in a stable ? and 
were not the birds and the foxes better housed than He ? 
He may have no earthly treasure, but he has "an inherit- 
ance reserved for him in heaven." His body may be full 
of sores, but God says to his soul, " Thy beauty was perfect 
through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee." He 
may have but "crumbs" to eat here, but he has an invitation 
" to the marriage-supper of the Lamb." He may have no 



358 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

companions now, but angels minister to him as one of the 
heirs of salvation, the Holy Ghost dwells in his heart as a 
Comforter ; Christ is to him " a friend that sticketh closer 
than a brother;" and, from the lowest deep of earthly 
abasement, he can look up to God, and say, " Abba, 
Father." Therefore, to all the depressed and humbled 
Christians, we say, in the words of the once lowly and 
despised, but now glorious and exalted Saviour, " look up, 
and lift up your heads ; for your redemption draweth nigh." 
And finally, this parable teaches that our eternal future 
corresponds to our earthly character. We enter the world 
of spirits with precisely the same moral feelings with which 
we leave this. " As the tree falls, so it lies." He that at 
death is sinful, will be sinful still. He that at death is 
holy, will be holy still. This being the case, as God's 
Word positively assures us, and there being guarantied to 
us only the present moment of time in which to prepare 
for this unending future, with how much emphasis should 
this consideration speak to us of the necessity of making 
immediate preparations to meet our God ! Before Him we 
may be at any moment summoned. If called hence in an 
unrepenting and unbelieving state, we shall enter that 
unseen world only to spend an eternity amidst the tor- 
ments of the lost, with an impassable gulf between us and 
the land of bliss. An "impassable gulf!" No passing 
now ! no passing ten thousand ages hence ! no passing for 
ever ! Once " in hell, lifting up our eyes in torment," and 
we are there for ever ; for though there is remorse in hell, 



.DIVES AND LAZARUS. 359 

though, there is sorrow there, though there is weeping and 
wailing there, there is no repentance there, no faith there, 
no Saviour there ! 

Now, there is mercy and forgiveness ; now, the blood-filled 
fountain is open ; now, the arms of Jesus are outstretched 
to receive us ; now, the Spirit pleads and moves upon our 
hearts; now, the instrumentalities of grace are freely 
offered. Seize them now, "for now is the accepted time; 
NOW is the day of salvation." 



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THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON: THE 
GREAT SUPPER. 

" The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for 
his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding : 
and they would not come. Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them 
which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner ; my oxen and my fatlings are 
killed, and all things are ready, come unto the marriage. But they made light of 
it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise : and the 
remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But 
when the king heard thereof, he was wroth : and he sent forth his armies, and 
destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to nis servants, 
The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye there- 
fore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those 
servants went out into the highways and gathered together all, as many as they 
found, both bad and good : and the wedding was furnished with guests. And when 
the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding- 
garment : and he saith unto him, Friend, how earnest thou in hither, not having a 
wedding-garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, 
Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness ; 
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are 
chosen." Matt. xxii. 1-14. 

"A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servant at 
supper-time to say to them that were bidden, Come ; for all things are now ready. 
And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I 
have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it : I pray thee have 
me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to 
prove them : I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a 
wife ; and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and showed his lord 
these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go 
out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and 

363 



364 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as 
thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servant, 
Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house 
may be filled. For I say unto you, that none of those men which were bidden, shall 
taste of my supper." Luke xiv. 16-24. 

WE have placed these two parables together, because, 
though uttered at different times, and designed ori- 
ginally for different purposes, they have such a general 
unity of structure, similitude, and interpretation, that for 
all practical purposes they may be regarded and unfolded 
as one. 

It is peculiarly interesting to observe the rich and 
attractive drapery in which our Lord clothes His doctrines. 
He presents before the mental eye that which is usually full 
of joy, " a great supper ;" that which is overflowing with 
gladness, " a marriage feast :" and, that the attractions might 
be heightened by the splendour of wealth and the pomp of 
station, He introduces royalty itself — a King preparing a 
bridal entertainment " for his son," — thus taking the 
highest banquet of earth, to shadow forth " the marriage 
supper of the Lamb" in Heaven. 

No people were more accustomed to make weddings 
occasions of festivity, than the Orientals; for they cele- 
brated the nuptials of sons and daughters with a display 
and magnificence equal to their rank or wealth, extending 
the festivities over several days : hence the Greek word 
used here by St. Matthew, and translated " marriage," is 
put in the plural number, because these feasts continued a 
succession of days : as we learn from the direction of Laban 
to Jacob, "Fulfil her week;" or keep her usual marriage 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 365 

feast : and it is recorded of Sampson, that at his marriage he 
" made a feast seven days ; for so used the young men to do :" 
and the Rabbins inform us, that this seven days of feasting 
was " a matter of indispensable obligation upon all married 
men." It was customary also to celebrate the inauguration 
of kings and sovereigns with feasts, similar to the wedding- 
banquets; for on the day on which they assumed the 
government of the land to which they succeeded, or were 
appointed, the kings or rulers were considered as Sponsi et 
Mariti ; as affianced or solemnly united to their country, — 
which is therefore compared to a Sponsa or bride. 

When Jesus Christ, therefore, was to enter upon His 
mediatorial reign, God made a marriage feast at the 
espousals of His Son with the Church, and set out the 
banquet with the fat things of the Gospel of His grace. And 
in this comparison there is much propriety ; for both the 
old and new covenants are several times spoken of by Pro- 
phets and Apostles, as marriage contracts between God and 
His people. Indeed, of all human relationship, this is the 
most frequently and the most elaborately used, to express 
the oneness, intimacy, and affection that exists between 
Christ and the Church. St. John introduces this figure 
with great effect in his description of the future glory of 
the Church : " And I heard," says he, " as it were the voice 
of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and 
as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia : for 
the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and 
rejoice, and give honour to Him : for the marriage of the 
Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And 



366 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine 
linen, clean and white : for the fine linen is the righteous- 
ness of saints." "Blessed are they which are called unto 
the marriage supper of the Lamb." Well might there be 
" a feast of fat things on God's holy mountain," when His 
only begotten Son was espoused to the Church; when he 
took His earthly Zion to His bosom as His bride, and gave 
to her the dowry of the Holy Ghost. 

When the banquet spoken of in the parables was pre- 
pared, the servants, in both cases, were sent out to those 
who had been previously "bidden," with the message, 
"Come, for all things are now ready;" in accordance with 
the oriental usage, by which the guests to a feast were 
twice called ; first, invited some time before, that they 
might prepare themselves; and secondly, summoned a short 
time previous to the banquet, that they might be there in 
season. 

Thus were the Jews, to whom these parables were ad- 
dressed, twice bidden to the Gospel feast ; first, by the pro- 
phets, long before, and again, by Christ's apostles and disci- 
ples, saying, in the name of their Lord and King, " Behold, 
I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatlings are killed, 
and all things are ready, come unto the marriage." The 
message was urgent, ample, and seasonable, and we should 
have supposed that it would at once have been responded 
to with alacrity and gladness. On the contrary, however, 
they to whom the message came " made light of it," and 
*' all, with one consent, began to make excuse," pleading 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 367 

the most trivial affairs as a reason for slighting both the 
entertainer and the entertainment. 

What though one had "bought a piece of ground ?" the 
ground was not a perishable, movable thing, that "he 
must needs go and see it" now. It would lie in the same 
situation and have the same quality of soil to-morrow that 
it had to-day. 

What though another had " bought five yoke of oxen ?" 
'he could test their strength and quality to-morrow as well 
as now ; and it was not necessary therefore that he should 
neglect the banquet to "go and prove them." 

What though another had " married a wife ?" that could 
not be plead in excuse for such unjustifiable neglect ; for 
his wife was not given to him to enjoy only to-day, to be 
removed to-morrow, but was his for a lifetime, and hence 
he could the more easily spare a portion of time now, to 
the calls of his lord and master. 

There was neither validity nor force in any of these ex- 
cuses ; and to the contempt and refusal of some was added 
insult and murder by others ; " for the remnant," says one 
of the parables, " took his servants, and entreated them spite- 
fully, and slew them ;" which thing was true of the Jews, 
who evil-entreated and slew, by cruel deaths, nearly all 
the Apostles of our Lord. 

These insults to his servants and murders of his mes- 
sengers the king hears of with anger, but he lays aside his 
revenge until the feast is over. 

Kesolved that the wedding and the supper which had 
been prepared should be " furnished with guests," though 



368 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

those who were first bidden were unworthy, servants are 
" sent out into the highways, the streets and lanes of the 
city," who " gathered together all, as many as they found," 
" the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind ;" 
and thus " the wedding was furnished with guests." 

This circumstance has been thought by some, unac- 
quainted with oriental manners, unnatural and impro- 
pable ; but ancient and modern writers unite to attest its 
truthfulness. Dr. Pococke, a distinguished Eastern traveil- 
ler, says that " an Arab prince will often dine in the street, 
before his door, and call to all that pass, even to beggars, 
in the name of God, to come and sit down to his table ;" 
and to this day, in several parts of Asia, it is as common 
for a rich man or prince to give a feast to" the poor, the 
maimed, and the blind, as it is in Europe or America for 
gentlemen to entertain those of their own rank or order. 

Thus were the Gentiles, "the maimed, the halt, the 
poor, and the blind," as the Jews esteemed them, called to 
the Gospel feast, when their despisers, the Israelites, had 
haughtily rejected the repeated invitations ; for Christ had 
just before declared, "many shall come from the east and 
from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and 
Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God ; but the children 
of the kingdom shall be cast out." 

As there was still " room," after many had been gathered 
out of the streets and the lanes, the servant was com- 
manded, "go out into the highways and hedges, and 
compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." 

Much and injurious stress has been laid upon the word 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 369 

" compel/' as though it were constraint under physical fear 
or force. The word, it is true, may admit of that inter- 
pretation, but it cannot mean here anything more than 
that moral compulsion which results from the stress of 
argument and the force of personal appeal; because the 
one servant to whom was given the direction, " compel 
them to come in," could not by his personal power force, 
against their will, a sufficient number of persons to occupy 
the seats of so great a supper. It therefore means, an 
internal constraint through the pressure of powerful 
motives. 

The invited guests having taken their places, the feast 
proceeds. A circumstance, however, is brought out in the 
parable of the Marriage Supper, which is of too much 
practical importance to be overlooked. It is said, "And 
when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a 
man which had not on a wedding garment ; and he said 
unto him, Friend" (comrade, or companion, for the original 
word does not imply affection and regard), "how earnest thou 
in hither, not having a wedding garment ?" In all large 
oriental weddings, the guests were expected to appear in 
particular robes, generally white, which were furnished by 
the master of the feast. This is an ancient custom, for we 
find two instances mentioned by Homer, and it is also 
alluded to by other classical writers. 

It is well known that the wardrobes of the Eastern 

nobles constitute an important part of their riches. Thus 

Job, speaking of the wicked, says, " Though they heap up 

silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay." Diodo- 
24 



370 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

rus Siculus, in his 13th Book, gives an account of the hos- 
pitality of Gellius the Sicilian, who at one time, when five 
hundred horsemen were driven by a storm to take refuge 
with him, supplied them all with clothes. When Lucullus, 
the rich Roman general, was asked if he could furnish a 
hundred chlamydes (short military cloaks) for the theatre, 
he replied that he could send five thousand. We may, there- 
fore, naturally enough suppose that this king, having invited 
guests to his feast from the highways and hedges, would 
order his servants to see them all properly clad out of his 
own wardrobe, that they might be not only cleanly in their 
apparel, but also, being dressed alike, might all feel them- 
selves on one level, and thus avoid those distinctions which 
difference of garments so often makes. 

Not to have a wedding garment was, therefore, a mark 
of disrespect to the host, to the feast, and to the guests. 
Indulging these feelings of hatred, and manifesting them 
by an open refusal to appear in the prescribed dress, it is 
not to be wondered at that, when confronted with the king 
and questioned by him as to his appearance, the man should 
be " speechless," — that conscious guilt should muzzle his 
mouth with shame, for his conduct manifested a state of 
mind and heart worthy of condign punishment ; nor was it 
long delayed, for the incensed king ordered his servants to 
" bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer dark- 
ness," beyond the glare and lights of the halls and courts ; 
where, instead of pleasure and delight, he should have 
" wailing and gnashing of teeth," the fruits of a bitter but 
unavailing sorrow. 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 371 

This wedding garment is, by some, regarded as faith, by 
others, a holy life, but Calvin well says, " It is needlessly 
contended, whether the wedding garment be faith or a 
pious and holy life ; because, neither can faith be separated 
from good works, nor are good works practicable without 
faith. Christ, however, only meant that we must so 
comply with the call of our Lord, as to be renewed in 
spirit, after his image, remaining constantly in union with 
him, that the old man, with his defilements, must be put 
off, and the new life diligently applied to, by which means 
our garment might become suitable to our honourable 
calling,** 

In his Epistle to the Eomans, St. Paul urges us " put ye 
on the Lord Jesus Christ." This we are to do after having 
cast off the works of darkness" — those deeds and thoughts 
and feelings which belong to us in our carnal and benighted 
state. These are the defiled garments of our depraved 
nature ; but when, through the grace given unto us, we 
cast these away and come to Christ, his language is, " Take 
away the filthy garment from him ; behold, I have caused 
thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with 
change of raiment ;" and that change of raiment is the 
wedding garment of Christ's righteousness, seamless, spot- 
less, which he gives to each believer, and in which alone 
he can appear with acceptance before the Great King. 
Thus arrayed, the devout soul can sing with the Prophet, 
" I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful 
in my God : for he hath clothed me with the garments of 



372 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteous- 
ness." 

We have reason to fear, however, that many who sit at 
the earthly table of the Lord's House, are aptly represented 
by the man " who had not on a wedding garment," They 
have heard the invitation, they have gone in to the banquet, 
but they went in the soiled and earth-stained garments of 
their own morality, and never sought "to be clothed upon" 
with that robe of righteousness which Christ bestows upon 
all who come to him in true penitence and faith. The eye 
of man cannot tell whether we are thus arrayed or not, but 
when " the King comes in to see the guests," all shall be 
revealed ; for, in the language of the Prophet Zephaniah, 
" The Lord hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his 
guests ; and it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord's 
sacrifice, that I will punish the princes and the king's 
children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.-" 
And what a startling question will that be, which the Lord 
shall then put — " Friend," a seeming friend, because a 
nominal companion, " how earnest thou in" the Church and 
at my table, " not having on the wedding garment ?" You 
cannot say that you did not need it, for God distinctly 
says, " Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." You 
cannot say that it was not offered to you ; for it is freely 
bestowed, yea, even pressed upon your acceptance by the 
ministers of Christ. You cannot say that it will make no 
difference whether I have one on or not, for it is emphati- 
cally stated, that you can only secure the favour of God by 
being thus robed in the garment of salvation. To the stern 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 373 

interrogation of our Lord you, like the man in the parable, 
will be " speechless." Your mouth will be muzzled w T ith 
shame, and your face covered with confusion, and you shall 
be cast out into outer darkness, beyond the light and glory 
of Heaven, into the blackness of eternal sorrow ; and there 
you will be left to spend eternal ages, writhing under the 
wrath of an angry God. 

Have we this wedding garment? The hour is not far 
distant when the King will " come in to see the guests " 
are we prepared to meet his searching gaze by having put 
on Christ, as "our wdsdom, and righteousness, and sanctifi- 
cation, and redemption ?" or have we been so careless, or 
hypocritical, or unbelieving, as to neglect this only garment 
of salvation, and thus procure for ourselves eternal banish- 
ment from the presence of God ? 

Ascending now from particular incidents to general 
inferences, we remark that these parables illustrate three 
important points, viz., the freeness and fulness of the Gos- 
pel feast ; the perverseness of the human heart in making 
light of and declining its invitations; and the righteous 
vengeance which will overtake all impugners of God's 
grace and mercy. 

First, the freeness and fulness of the Gospel feast. 
The Gospel offers everything for our spiritual wants and 
appetites, and leaves unsatisfied no craving of the soul. 
Are we weak in the faith, of feeble knees, and stammer- 
ing tongues, " babes in Christ ?" here is found " the sincere 
milk of the Word, that we may grow thereby." Are we 
strong and masculine in our spiritual energies and capabili- 
ties, with our " senses exercised to discern both good and 



374 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

evil ?" here is to be had " the strong meat" of doctrines and 
mysteries. Are we crying out with one of old, " My lean- 
ness ! my leanness !" here is that bread of life, and wine 
of grace, that will make us muscular and robust in spirit- 
ual health. Are we " hungering and thirsting after right- 
eousness?" our souls " shall be satisfied as with marrow 
and fatness ;" every holy appetite shall be appeased, for at 
the table of the Lord are found those memorials of dying 
love, of which whosoever eateth in faith, does, in the 
language of the martyr Latimer, " Eat with the mouth of 
his soul, and drink with the stomach of his soul, the body 
of Christ." This is bringing us to a more than angels' 
banquet, and feeding us on more than angels' food." 

And to this " feast of fat things," which God has spread 
upon His holy mountain, the Church, all are invited. 
God has sent out His servants, His ministers, to summon 
all to this marriage supper of the Lamb, and the invitation 
runs in these words : " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 
ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ; yea, 
buy wine and milk, without money and without price;" 
" Come, for all things are ready ;" " And the Spirit and the 
Bride say, Come, and whosoever will, let him come, and take 
of the water of life freely," for the assurance of the Bride- 
groom is, " Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise 
cast out." Nothing can be more full and free than the 
invitations of grace : God's ministers are commissioned to 
go into all the world, to call men everywhere to repent- 
ance, to offer pardon to the guiltiest, peace to the most 
rebellious, mercy to the scarlet-dyed transgressor. 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 375 

These free offers are made without any prerequisites on 
our part of worth or merit. We are not to work out one 
part of our salvation and expect Christ to do the rest. He 
must save us wholly, or not at all. All that is required of 
us is, to feel our sinfulness and our need of a Saviour, and 
to take him as our alone Redeemer. He will work in and 
with us to do the rest. These free offers of grace are made 
in good faith on the part of God. He " is not a man that 
he should lie." . He is not a deceiver, promising much and 
fulfilling little. " Hath he said it, and shall He not do it ? 
Hath he spoken, and shall it not come to pass ?" " Heaven 
and earth," he says, " shall pass away, but my word shall 
not pass away." So that we may rely with the most im- 
plicit trust in the free salvation offered to us by our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. These offers of grace are also 
as full as they are free. They cover all sins, for " the blood 
of Jesus Christ cleanse th from all sin f they extend to all 
our spiritual needs, for Christ Jesus " is of God made unto 
us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and re- 
demption ;" they leave nothing to be supplied by human 
means or merit, for we " are complete" in Christ ; and they 
open to us full and unending glories in the world to come, 
for, once there, we " shall go no more out for ever." 

Secondly. We might suppose that offers of mercy thus free 
and full would be accepted with delight, and that sin-bur- 
dened men would hasten to embrace the salvation proffered 
" without money and without price ;" but our experience 
teaches just the reverse, for it is. at this point that the per- 
verseness and depravity of the human mind manifest them- 



376 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

selves, in making light of and declining these invitations. 
Of the great majority of those to whom the Gospel invita- 
tion come, may it be said, that they either "make light of 
it," or else " with one consent begin to make excuse." That 
which is the most pressing want of their souls for time and 
for eternity, that which involves the highest interests of their 
moral natures, is made to occupy a subordinate place, or, 
too often, no place at all ; while the farm, the merchandise, 
the cares of the family, things fleeting in themselves and 
comparatively of small value, are permitted to take an ab- 
sorbing precedence. This is virtually saying that God's 
estimate of the soul and sin and salvation is wrong, and 
ours right ; and thus, acting according to the counsel of our 
own minds and the deceitfulness of our own hearts, we 
reject the overtures of grace, and continue on in sin and 
unbelief. Such a charge may shock the sensibilities of 
some, and they may deny that they are guilty of making 
light of the invitations of grace, or of excusing themselves 
from attendance on the Gospel feast. 

It is true that you may not have made a mock of the 
truth, or openly scoffed at the ministers of God, or laughed 
at the ordinances of the Church; you may, on the con- 
trary, regard the Bible with profound respect, and reve- 
rence His servants and His sanctuary with many kindly 
demonstrations. When the Sabbath bell rings out its call 
to prayer, you may bend your head in worship ; when the 
organ peal fills the vaulted roof, you may lift up your 
voice in the swelling chant; when the ambassador for 
Jesus proclaims the truths of salvation, you may listen 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 377 

" as unto a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant 
voice, and can play well upon an instrument;" so that 
throughout your external conduct there shall be visible no 
impropriety of word or deed; and yet, after all this, you 
ma}^ be fully obnoxious to the charge of the text. We 
can illustrate this proposition by a single supposable case : 
— You are sick ; a physician has been called in, and after 
due examination of your symptoms, he has left certain 
prescriptions, which he assures you will relieve your dis- 
ease. Your common sense, your experience, your judg- 
ment, confirm his words; but, in spite of all this, you 
refuse to follow his directions. You do not laugh at them, 
the matter is too serious ; you do not scoff at them, for 
your reason tells you that they are proper remedials ; but 
you do not take the required medicines. On repeating his 
visit, the physician finds you no better ; and learning that 
you had refused to take his prescriptions, he tells you he 
is sorry that you "made light" of them. "Oh, no, sir," 
you reply, "I did not make light of them — I did not 
laugh at them or turn them into derision — I doubt not 
that they are very valuable." " But," interrupts the phy- 
sician, " did you follow my directions ?" " Why, no, sir, I 
did not." " And does not this simple refusal to do as I 
directed," he might say, "show that you make light of 
them — that you do not prize them ? Is it not treating me 
with the most practical levity and slight ?" 

The Great Physician of Souls has come to you and 
found you languishing under the disease of sin. " The 
whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint." He comes 



378 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

to you with the Balm of Gilead, and tells you what will 
cure your dreadful malady. His prescriptions commend 
themselves to your reason, judgment, and conscience. 
You will die unless you conform to His directions; yet 
day after day you hesitate, you put off compliance, refusing 
to take that which will make you morally sound and 
healthful in the sight of God. Is not this making light 
of Christ in a manner insulting to Him and ruinous to 
your own soul ? Nothing can be plainer than the proposi- 
tion, that we make light of that which is worthy of being 
received, and which it is important for us to receive, when 
we do not receive it into good and honest hearts. What 
more worthy of our reception than the offers of grace in 
Christ Jesus ? What more important to our eternal inter- 
ests ? Yet, not accepting them, not providing for our 
souls' highest needs, we are in very truth making light of 
them, to the peril of our souls. Should you, however, 
instead of silently neglecting Christ, attempt with much 
honeyed plausibility to excuse yourself from His service, 
pleading your daily cares and domestic duties in extenua- 
tion, your condition would not be much better. Excuse 
yourself ! to whom ? to God your Creator for not obeying 
Him ! to Christ your Redeemer for not loving Him ! to the 
Holy Ghost the Sanctifier for doing despite unto His prof- 
fered Grace! Excuse yourself! from what? from the 
service of God ! from union with Christ ! from the renew- 
ing of the Holy Spirit ! from peace of mind ! from joy of 
heart ! from hope of heaven ! from eternal life ! Excuse 
yourself! for what? for a few days' continuance in sin! 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 379 

for the fear of sneering friends ! for the dread of coming 
out from the world ! for lack of moral courage to acknow- 
ledge yourself a sinner, needing salvation, and seeking it 
where only it can be found, at the foot of the cross ! How 
will such conduct appear in a dying hour, when the vani- 
ties of the world are dissolving, and the realities of eternity 
rising into view? How will it appear at the judgment 
seat of Christ, before those open books, and that great 
white throne, and the once rejected Saviour, then sitting 
there in His divine glory ? God inviting ! man making 
light of the invitation ! this is a wonder hitherto unheard 
of in the moral universe, 

Thirdly, we notice the righteous vengeance which will 
overtake those who make light of the invitation, and 
excuse themselves from the feast. 

In the parable of the Marriage of the King's Son, it is 
said, that when the king heard of the rejection of his 
invitation, " he was wroth, and he sent forth his armies, 
and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city ;" 
in evident allusion to the fate that befell Jerusalem, where 
these very things came to pass. In the parable of the Great 
Supper, the master of the feast declared, " None of those 
men that were bidden shall taste of my supper •" while he 
who neglected to put on the wedding garment was " cast into 
outer darkness." All these are figurative illustrations of 
God's wrath against the deliberate and wanton rejecters of 
the Lord Jesus; and they indicate the positive determination 
of the Most High, that He " will not in anywise clear the 
guilty." As a God of holiness, He must, by the very neces- 



880 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

si ties of His nature, punish sin as long as sin exists. This 
punishment of sin must also be commensurate with the 
greatness of the sin ; and though, in one sense, all sins are 
great, because committed against a great God, and because 
they are violations of a great law; yet there is a grade in 
transgressions, rising in degrees of guilt from the simplest 
thought of evil to the sin against the Holy Ghost, which, 
our Lord says, shall never be forgiven. We cannot classify 
our sins, because we do not know their real malignity or 
influence ; yet we can easily see that transgressions such 
as are implied in making light of Christ, and refusing the 
overtures of grace, must be very grievous, and must evoke 
severe vengeance. And what we thus argue on principles 
of ordinary reason, the Bible declares, by setting forth in 
language of the most vivid and decided kind, the greatness 
and the woe of those who thus draw upon themselves swift 
destruction. 

But we turn from the consideration of these mournful 
yet impressive truths, to listen for a moment to a voice 
which speaks to us in one of the parables, uttering the 
sweet invitation, " Come, for all things are now ready !" 
It is the voice of mercy, speaking from the very throne of 
God. It is a voice calling to each sin-stricken heart in 
tones of comfort, for it is full of promise, hope, and joy. 
It tells us that " all things are now ready" on Earth. The 
incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of 
Christ, by which atonement was made for sin, and death 
and the grave stripped of their victories, have taken place, 
and their blessed results are now ready to be applied to the 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 381 

hearts and consciences of men. The Church on earth is 
ready to embrace you ; the earthly ministers of Christ are 
waiting to receive you ; the ordinances of grace are ready 
for your participation ; so that in every particular we can 
say, " all things" on earth " are ready ; come unto the 
marriage." 

This blessed voice also tells us, " Come, for all things 
are now ready" in Heaven. Christ has swung open to us 
its long-closed door; and, having gone before to prepare 
the way, has fitted up those mansions in His Fathers 
house, destined for the occupation of believers. Every- 
thing is prepared in heaven ; angels wait there to receive 
us ; the spirits of the just watch for our coming ; the gates 
of pearl are opened to admit us; the harp, and crown, 
and robe, and palm-branch are made ready for our use; 
the marriage supper is already spread out beneath the 
sunless sky of glory; so that, in every particular, we can 
say, " all things" in heaven " are ready, come unto the mar- 
riage." 

And with this invitation there is also coupled the 
assurance, "and yet there is room." There is room 
in the Church for more disciples ; there is room in the 
mercy of God for the very chief of sinners ; there is 
room in the blood-filled Fountain of Salvation for multi- 
tudes more of the vile and the degraded ; there is room 
in the grace of the Holy Ghost for all classes, ages, 
sexes, stations, climes, and kindred ; there is room in 
Heaven; the number of its inhabitants is not yet com- 
pleted ; its " many mansions" are not yet all occupied ; its 



382 THE PARABLES UNFOLDED. 

wardrobe of wedding garments is not yet exhausted : and 
not only room in Heaven, but welcomes ; and not only 
welcomes, but anthems of joy, as one after another shall 
come from the North and from the South, from the East 
and from the West, and sit down, with Abraham and Isaac 
and Jacob, to the marriage supper of the Lamb. If we 
perish now, after this full and free provision, the fault is 
all our own ; for God still says to us in His holy Word, 
" Come, for all things are ready ;" come, for " yet there is 
room." 



THE END. 



ftlYI 1 



